Rolls-Royce to Supply Equipment for Six Platform Supply Vessels

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.

Jorn 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.