Samsung Heavy Industries wins approval for shuttle tanker battery hybrid system

Samsung Heavy Industries received basic approval from Norwegian classification society DNV for its shuttle tanker battery hybrid system at Offshore Korea 2026, an international maritime energy and plant industry exhibition held Wednesday at Bexco in Busan.

Shuttle tankers are a type of crude oil carrier. When operating at offshore oil fields, these vessels must receive crude oil at sea and use thrusters — small propulsion devices — to maintain a fixed position. The drawback is that thruster operation consumes a significant amount of fuel.

The certified system addresses this by equipping vessels with additional batteries to provide an auxiliary power source for position control. This reduces the engine load required during positioning operations and enables a stable power supply. The use of electric power is also expected to cut fuel costs and carbon taxes.

"The hybrid operation of batteries and engines enables a stable power supply," said Kim Seung-hyeok, senior vice president and head of the machinery design team at Samsung Heavy Industries. "We will continue to expand the development of eco-friendly solutions, including minimizing carbon emissions."

Meanwhile, Samsung Heavy Industries is showcasing S-EDH, an engineering design automation platform it says is the first of its kind in the industry, at Offshore Korea 2026, which runs through Friday. The platform automatically generates 2D drawings from data input alone. The company is also displaying a model of the Delfin floating LNG production facility currently under construction at its Geoje shipyard, as well as a model of a floating data center designed to overcome the limitations of land-based data centers.