Oil player books three tanks at Odfjell’s growing South Korean terminal

Odfjell Terminals Korea (OTK), a subsidiary of Norwegian shipping company Odfjell, has entered into a multi-year contract with South Korean oil refining and petrochemical company S-Oil for storage at its expanding Ulsan terminal.

According to OTK, the ten-year contract encompasses three 23,990 cubic-meter (cbm) tanks forming part of its Ulsan terminal expansion project named E5. The deal represents the formalization of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) the two players signed three months ago.

The tanks will accommodate S-Oil’s Shaheen project, a $7 billion crude-to-chemical facility being built near OTK’s Ulsan terminal. The E5 expansion will be directly connected to Shaheen via pipeline, enabling exports to global markets by sea. 

“The long-term agreement underscores the growing collaboration between OTK and S-OIL and sets the stage for additional business opportunities in the Ulsan region, driven by new production capacity and trade flows linked to the Shaheen project,” said Adrian Lenning, Managing Director of Odfjell Terminals.

The expansion is scheduled to start in the first half of 2025, with the new tanks expected to be operational by the second half of 2026. As stated by the developer, it aligns with the robust storage demand outlook in Northeast Asia.

The E5 project will see the addition of a new tank pit with ten 87,940 cbm carbon steel storage tanks. Once the expansion is completed, OTK’s total storage capacity is set to increase by 28%, to more than 400,000 cbm. 

Another unit of Odfjell, Odfjell Drilling, has been busy making new oil and gas discoveries around the world with its rigs. Earlier this week, Equinor made a new hydrocarbon discovery off the coast of Norway using Deepsea Atlantic.

Before that, TotalEnergies used the Deepsea Mira rig, owned by Northern Ocean (NOL) and managed by Odfjell Drilling, to drill an exploration well offshore Namibia.