Keppel Clinches Shipbuilding Contracts

Keppel Offshore & Marine Ltd’s (Keppel O&M) specialized shipbuilding arm, Keppel Singmarine Pte Ltd (Keppel Singmarine) has clinched three newbuilding contracts totaling about $98.5m.

The first contract was awarded to Keppel Singmarine by Dutch dredging and marine contractor, Royal Boskalis Westminster N.V. (Boskalis) for the construction of a 159-metre long rock dumping fall pipe vessel to be completed in late 2011.

Rock dumping fall pipe vessels are capable of depositing large amounts of rocks in deep waters with great precision to protect and stabilise cables and oil and gas pipelines on the seabed.

The vessel to be built by Keppel Singmarine will have a carrying capacity for 23,000 tonnes of rock. She will be installed with propulsion machinery and special rock handling equipment supplied by Boskalis to carry out precise rock depositing works at water depths of more than 1000 metres with Dynamic Positioning (DP-2) capabilities. This vessel will also have a flexible fall pipe with a Remotely Operated Vehicle installed at the lower end for better positioning. As the vessel moves along her track under dynamic control, the rocks will be lowered through the fall pipe at a controlled rate.

In addition to Boskalis’ vessel, Keppel Singmarine has also secured another two tugboat contracts. The first is to build a 65-tonne bollard pull twin-screw Azimuth Stern Drive (ASD) tugboat with FiFi1 notation for firefighting for repeat customer, Smit International. This tugboat is based on the proprietary MTD 3265T design developed in-house by Keppel’s Marine Technology Development unit.

The second tugboat contract involves constructing a 50-tonne bollard pull twin-screw ASD tugboat for an Indonesian customer PT. Pelayaran Trans Parau Sorat.

The tugboats are scheduled for completion in the fourth and first quarter of 2010 respectively.