Oil giant Shell has signed a joint development agreement with floating wind specialist CoensHexicon over a project off the city of Ulsan in South Korea.

The two partners will work together to build and operate the TwinWind floating wind project about 40km off Ulsan, said a statement.

CoensHexicon, itself a joint venture between Sweden-based Hexicon and local infrastructure group Coens Co., is developing 200MW at its Donghae TwinWind site off the Korean coast, according to its website.

Henrik Baltscheffsky, CEO of Hexicon: “This is the start of our commercial journey in South Korea and similar places around the globe. We have formed a project company … an adequate water area offshore Ulsan City and are developing the first commercial floating wind farm.

“Our collaboration with Shell will contribute a wealth of skills and expertise when it comes to developing and operating a large floating wind farm. This includes serial manufacturing in South Korea of the patented multi-turbine foundation design developed by Hexicon in Sweden.”

The Shell/CoensHexicon partnership was one of four groups which early this year signed a memorandum of understanding with Ulsan over potential development of 1GW of floating capacity off the city, with deployment from 2022.