Stena and Sonangol order tankers for Brazil

As reported on 13 January in The Motorship, two of the tanker orders were announced last month and the option on another two will now be exercised, Stena ceo Ulf Ryder said in an interview in Rio de Janeiro. Sonangol SA, Stena’s partner in Brazil, ordered five additional tankers from Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co., he said.

Stena is seeking to benefit as Brazil’s state-controlled producer Petroleo Brasileiro SA spends $174 billion over the next five years to boost output and develop offshore deposits. The orders are part of an effort by Stena and Sonangol, Angola’s state-run oil company, to increase their Brazil-based fleet to 25 from 15 now, Ryder said.

“Petrobras is the most aggressive oil company in the world today,” Ryder said. “Brazil is going to be the biggest in the world in offshore.” Rio de Janeiro-based Petrobras aims to more than double oil production to 5.7 million barrels a day by 2020 as it develops fields in the so-called pre-salt region, which sits off Brazil’s coast and holds oil deposits under a layer of salt. Petrobras said in 2007 that the Tupi field may have as much as 8 billion barrels of oil, the biggest discovery in the Americas since Mexico’s Cantarell in 1976.

Ryder said Samsung will deliver the four tankers to Stena in the first quarter of 2012 and Sonangol will receive its tankers in late 2011. All nine tankers have the capacity to ship about 1 million barrels each.

Stena picked the “best timing ever” when it ordered the tankers earlier in 2010 after a global oversupply of vessels depressed prices, Ryder said. He added “We have been very lucky.” Samsung spokesman Yoon Jong Deuk said yesterday that a deal for the remaining two tankers for Stena has not been completed. Ahn Wook Hyun, a spokesman at Daewoo Shipbuilding, said nothing has been decided on any orders from Sonangol.