MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Maersk orders from Chile two offshore supply vessels for Canada

Chilean shipyard Asenav (Photo FIS)

Maersk Supply Service has contracted Chilean shipyard Asenav, the country’s largest private yard, to build two new offshore vessels, with an option for up to four more.

They will replace existing vessels operating offshore Canada. The estimated value to Asenav is nearly 200 million dollars. Asenav and Maersk have contracted before with the delivery of five vessels: Maersk Dispatcher, Maersk Detector, Svitzer Bedford, Maersk Nomad and Maersk Nexus.

Both vessels will be suited to a range of services including iceberg management, anchor handling, standby, and general support of drilling rigs and other offshore installations by supplying supplies such as fuel, water, equipment, drilling mud and other materials for drilling operations.

The hull has also been designed to comply with the speed and work patterns in this ultra harsh environment.

Unlike conventional supply vessels, Maersk claims, all the machinery will be optimized for low energy consumption. Additionally, ventilation of the engine room, and supply of cooling water to the engine and other systems will be implemented to match the needs of the crew and the engines. Taken together, the new features should reduce energy consumption on the vessels by up to 25%.

The vessels should be delivered in February 2014 and January 2015.

“We are very happy on announcing this order of two new vessels which represent additional improvements to the high standards we are committed to, with the work environment for the crews and the ecological focus of the incorporations”, said Carsten Plougmann Andersen, head of Maersk Supply Service, from AP Moller-Maersk Group.

Plougmann added the vessels “will have more strict standards regarding emissions, operations efficiency and time in the high seas, thanks to a set of new designs and will overall save up to 25% in fuel based on new technologies”.

The contract with Asenav brings further closer links of the Maersk Group with Chile. In effect last November the Danish company Maersk Container Industry announced the building of a plant for the construction of the first South American factory of refrigerated containers, with an investment of 170 million dollars and 1.800 jobs.