Coastal Contracts seals three-vessel deal for $46m

The contracts involved the sale of one unit of subsea support maintenance vessel and two units of low-end vessels, Coastal said in a stock market announcement. It added that one of the low-end vessels sales was to a new customer. The vessels are expected to be delivered later this year and into 2014.

This is the fifth batch of vessel sales orders secured by the group for the financial year 2013, bringing its order book to about MYR1.34bn, it said. Coastal added that the contracts were expected to contribute positively to the group’s top and bottom line for the financial years ending Dec 31, 2013 and 2014.
“Coastal group is sitting on a comfortable vessel sales order book with the inclusion of these new contracts. This will keep us busy in the financial year 2014,” executive chairman Ng Chin Heng said.

“We believe the current pace of expansion in OSV (offshore support vessel) orders will not be short-lived, as stable crude oil prices will continue to fuel more offshore exploration, development and production activities,” he added.

"We have already scaled up the shipbuilding value chain to focus on larger and deepwater capable OSV with specialisations to service increasingly complicated offshore operations and rigs in deepwater regions and even in ultra-deepwater regions. We believe the current buoyant drilling activity and bidding activity will be a strong catalyst to help Coastal Group capture the strong demand for OSV and fast-track its earnings expansion," Ng concluded.