Samsung Heavy Industries, a major South Korean shipbuilder, said Monday that its net losses widened in the first quarter from a year earlier due to evaluation losses of dollar-denominated assets.

For the January-March quarter, net losses deepened to 227 billion won ($185 million) from a loss of 102.6 billion won a year earlier, the company said in a regulatory filing.

Samsung Heavy said the won's weakness against the US dollar drove up the evaluation losses from its forward exchange contracts meant to resell five drill ships.

Operating losses widened to 47.8 billion won from a loss of 33.3 billion over the cited period, and sales jumped 25.3 percent on-year to reach 1.82 trillion won, it said.

Earlier this month, Samsung Heavy received a 253.6 billion-won order to build two very large crude oil carriers for a Bermudan shipper.

With the latest deal, Samsung Heavy has won orders worth $5 billion for five vessels so far this year, achieving 5.9 percent of its annual order target of $8.4 billion.

Shares in Samsung Heavy rose 0.12 percent to 4,175 won on Monday, underperforming the broader KOSPI's 1.79 percent gain. (Yonhap)