DET Norske Veritas, a major maritime classification group, will set up its first offshore task force in the Shanghai office to meet the rapid growth of China's offshore industry and support Chinese shipyards and designers.

The task force, designed to facilitate new building projects, comprises experts in DNV's key global offshore locations such as Dubai, Houston and Singapore.

"The offshore task force is positioned to respond rapidly to queries from the shipyards and other offshore industry players, and is committed to developing local resources for the future," said Derek Hoare, DNV's regional offshore manager for China.

China has been developing its competence and capabilities to build offshore units, which included the world's first circular deep-water drilling unit Sevan Driller and the MPI Adventure wind turbine installation vessel.

"China is gaining momentum in its offshore engineering development with proven track record in particular the successful delivery of milestone offshore units, and that is attracting more and more recognition from global owners," Hoare said. "We see that the offshore new building market is buoyant and there is a clear trend of more offshore new building projects being ordered in China."