The new 90-tonne bollard pull AHTS vessels will be built over an 18-month period at Chinese yard Wuchang Shipbuilding on “attractive payment terms”, according to MEO, a provider of service vessels to the offshore oil and gas industry across Southeast Asia, Australia and the Middle East.
The company also entered into a deal with an unnamed Singapore shipyard to construct six new crew/utility vessels, with an option to buy four more.
The first two vessels will be delivered in December this year followed by delivery of a vessel in both April and July 2014, with the final two vessels scheduled for delivery in December 2014.
“These vessel purchase agreements represent the continued execution of our fleet strategy, namely growing our OSV fleet in areas of the market where we see demand and renewal of our crew/utility vessel fleet to maintain our high utilisation levels and market leading position in Southeast Asia and the Middle East,” said Diederik de Boer, ceo of MEO.
In line with its fleet renewal strategy, MEO has also entered into an agreement to dispose one older crew/utility vessel to an Italian counterparty.
Meanwhile, MEO won a three-year charter with Seascape Surveys to provide a 2,000-dwt platform supply vessel (PSV) currently under construction at its Batam yard in Indonesia. Separately, the company also clinched three long term crew/utility vessel contracts in Malaysia.
The total aggregate value of the firm period of the PSV deal and the three crew/utility vessel contracts is approximately $29m.
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