S. Korea to open Hanoi hub to help offshore plant firms enter Vietnam

South Korea is establishing a cooperation hub in Hanoi to help domestic offshore plant service companies enter the Vietnamese market. The center will provide ongoing support — from local market and regulatory information to business matching, contract acquisition and joint research and development.

The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries announced Sunday that it will launch a trial operation of the Korea-Vietnam Offshore Plant Service Industry Cooperation Center in Hanoi starting Monday.

The offshore plant service industry covers activities related to the transportation, installation, operation, maintenance and decommissioning of offshore plants after their construction.

Vietnam operates a large number of offshore plants for oil and gas production. In recent years, demand has grown for safely and environmentally sound decommissioning of aging facilities or repurposing them for other uses.

In response, the oil and gas maintenance arm under Vietnam's Petroleum Research Institute expressed its intent last November to cooperate with South Korea, which has a track record in decommissioning aging offshore plants in Indonesia and repurposing them as artificial reefs. The Petroleum Research Institute is a research body under Vietnam's national industry and energy group, responsible for formulating national energy policy and strategy and providing technical services.

The center will be jointly operated for five years through August 2031 by the ETRS (Education Technology Research Support) Center under Korea Maritime and Ocean University — the project's implementing body — and the Vietnam Petroleum Research Institute. Its office will be located at the institute's Hanoi headquarters.

The center will pursue five areas of activity: supporting intergovernmental cooperation between South Korea and Vietnam, providing local market and regulatory information, offering export consulting, facilitating business matching and contract support between companies of the two countries, and identifying joint research and development projects. The ministry said the center is designed to address the information gaps and lack of local networks that South Korean companies have faced when entering the Vietnamese market.

"The establishment of this cooperation center will serve as an important stepping stone for our offshore plant service industry to advance into the Vietnamese market, following Indonesia," said Seo Jeong-ho, director general for ocean policy at the ministry. "Based on the results of the trial operation, we will actively support entry into the Southeast Asian market by establishing additional hubs in other regions where many South Korean companies are already present."