SEMBCORP Marine, the world's second-largest maker of oil rigs, won a US$229 million (S$328.5 million) contract from Sinopec International (Hong Kong) to build a jack-up rig, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday.

Sembcorp Marine's PPL Shipyard unit will deliver the rig in the first quarter of 2011, the company said in a statement to the Singapore exchange. Sinopec International is a unit of China Petroleum & Chemical, China's second-biggest oil company.

China, the world's largest oil user after the US, has intensified its search for oil and gas at home and abroad to overcome stagnating production from older fields.