Farstad orders construction vessel

Aker Yards has entered into a contract with Farstad Shipping for the building of a construction vessel with a value of approximately $135 million.

The vessel is a new UT-design from Rolls-Royce and has been given the designation UT 761 CD. With a total length of 121.5 metres and breadth of 26.0 metres, the newbuilding will have a bollard pull of over 350 tonnes continuous and is designed for the main purpose of plough trenching of pipelines for the offshore oil and gas industry. It will also be fitted with a large construction crane, an A-frame and be fully capable of undertaking subsea operations at ultra deep waters.

Aker Yards Langsten is to construct the vessel which will be built according to DNV?s strictest environmental class: “Clean Design”, will have Ice-Class for operation in northern waters and highest class for dynamic positioning (DP 3). The hull will be built in Romania and outfitting will be done at the Langsten yard in Norway with delivery scheduled for December 2008.

Upon delivery, the newbuilding will enter into a long-term charter with Saipem UK Ltd. The service contract has a minimum 5 year firm period and Saipem can elect to change this firm period up to 10 years. In addition Saipem has options to extend the contract with 5 x 1 year beyond the firm period. Commencement of the contract is January 2009.

This is the 20th contract between the shipowner Farstad Shipping and Aker Yards and the project is the largest in Farstad?s history and the first vessel the company is building for this market sector.