Philippines largest shipyard operator Hanjin Heavy Industries-Philippines (HHIP) has reserved an additional 150 hectares of land for the expansion of its Subic yard in its bid to handle swelling orders for new buildings as well as other projects.

The expansion, which has an estimated investment cost of about $1 billion, is being geared towards the platform for the new Malampaya exploration project.

It is also designed to accommodate additional new building orders after the order books for new buildings became very active again in the early part of this year.

According to SBMA, Hanjin is still temporarily holding its Cagayan de Oro plant and instead will focus on its Subic yard while waiting for the result of their bid on the new Malampaya platform.

It may be recalled that Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction Co. Ltd. and competitor Philippine-registered engineering and general contracting firm Atlantic, Gulf & Pacific Company (AG&P) are trying to become two in the roll of companies eyed to be tapped for the engi­neering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the phase 2 of the Malampaya project.

“Even before the Malampaya II project, HHI-P already expressed their intention to expand their yard in Subic,” SBMA said in a statement.

“However, with the Malampaya project, we now expect that the ex­pansion would be accelerated that will result to big investments for SBMA,” it added.

“With the new expansion program, HHI-P is also looking at setting up all other support industries for the platform project will all be housed in Subic,” it explained.

Under the plan, the 100 hectares—falling under Phase 1-2 of the ship­yard development—is dedicated for dry-dock (DD) 6 while the re­maining 50 hectares will be the area dedicated for the fabrication of the materials for the platform.

As of the moment, current capacity of Hanjin in Subic is about 2 mil­lion metric tons a year or about 80-90% utilization.

HHI-P also has still 31 new buildings that are set to be delivered until 2015. At the end of August, Hanjin delivered its 24th ship that is a bulk carrier christened MV Houheng II to Heugh Industries, Hong Kong and on September 10, the company also delivers its 25th ship to an undisclosed company.