Halul Offshore Services (HOSC) will buy four new safety standby vessels at a cost of about $16m and signed a contract with a Singaporean shipbuilder Pacific Ocean Engineering (POE). The contract for the vessels, expected to be built in 16 months at the POE’s shipyard in China, was signed by HOSC chairman Sheikh Hamad bin Suhaim al-Thani and POE managing director Raymond Quah. The vessels, designed to provide safety cover to offshore installations for protection and rescue operations, are equipped with fire fighting pumps, life saving gadgets and environment monitoring systems for checking poisonous hydrogen sulphide gas and flammable gases. Each vessel will have a fast rescue craft capable of being fast deployed for rescue of survivors from the sea.