The nation's shipbuilding industry is seeing some signs of recovery after struggling from declining orders during the global recession.

Samsung Heavy Industries announced on Tuesday that it won deals worth US$750 million from four European shipmaking firms to build nine oil tankers and it will build a marine facility in Southeast Asia.

It also reached an agreement with multinational petroleum company Royal Dutch Shell to build a liquefied natural gas floating production storage offloading unit. An LNG-FPSO vessel can produce LNG at sea, store it, and transfer it to carriers after liquefaction. Although the price of the unit has not been publicly released, industry insiders estimate Samsung will reap some $2 billion through the deal.

A consortium led by Korea's Hyundai Heavy Industries, meanwhile, has been chosen as the preferred bidder for a $2 billion power plant project in Saudi Arabia. The gas power plant with a capacity of 1,730 megawatts will be located some 125 km west of the capital Riyadh.

Industry sources say Hyundai also could soon receive orders to build vessels for a Greek shipping company. This would be the conglomerate's first shipbuilding deal since September 2008 due to a drop in global orders and prices.

Last month Angola's state-run oil company Sonangol awarded a deal worth around $340 million to Korea's Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering. Under the deal the shipmaker will deliver five crude oil carriers to the African country between 2011 and 2013.

Samsung Heavy Industries says although conditions are stagnant in the global shipbuilding industry, nations and companies across the globe are making efforts to secure vessels to get ready for post-crisis economic situations.

But some say that difficulties are expected to lie ahead for the time being until the problem of excess supply of ships is resolved.