Rolls-Royce has further strengthened
its position in South America as a supplier of designs and equipment
packages for offshore vessels with contracts for six platform supply
vessels (PSV) worth around £45 million, including the first offshore
orders from Chile.
CBO (Companhia Brasileira de Offshore) has ordered four UT-Design type UT
715 L offshore supply vessel design and equipment packages. The 3,000
tonne deadweight PSVs are to be built by Allianca shipyard near Rio de
Janeiro for delivery in 2009 and 2010. The vessels will go straight into
long-term charters with the Brazilian state oil company, Petrobras.
The other UT-Design contract is from the Chilean shipyard Asnavales (Astilleros
y Servicios Navales) S.A, which is to build two UT 745 CD (clean design)
supply vessels for an international shipowner. These large PSVs mark the
first time that offshore service vessels using designs and equipment from
Rolls-Royce have been built in Chile.
Jørn Heltne, Vice President for Ship Technology – Offshore in Rolls-Royce,
said: "At the end of the 1990s, CBO was the first Brazilian shipowner to
have offshore service vessels built in Brazil, after 20 years with little
shipbuilding activity there. The first vessel was the UT755 CBO Campos,
and since then Rolls-Royce has had a good and close co-operation with CBO.
"Since then, CBO has built a range of our designs, including the type UT
715 L similar to the vessels that have now been ordered. We are delighted
that CBO has once again chosen our design and equipment."
These new orders are in addition to ten UT-Design vessels currently under
construction in Brazil. Altogether, some 40 vessels of UT-Design with
related packages of Rolls-Royce equipment have been built in Brazil in the
past six to seven years.
At the end of 2006, ASMAR Shipbuilding and Shiprepairing Company based in
Talcahuano in Chile, won a contract to build a coastguard vessel for
Iceland, using a new UT512 L design and equipment package from
Rolls-Royce.
1. The Marine business of Rolls-Royce employs 7,400 people in 34 countries
with the main manufacturing centres being in the UK, the Nordic countries,
the United States and increasingly Asia.
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