Eidesvik Offshore ASA is setting up a new ship- management joint-venture with the world’s leading international pure-play geophysical company, CGGVeritas, to manage ten high-capacity 3D vessels, including the two new X-BOW vessels, Oceanic Vega and TBN Oceanic Sirius.
The joint-venture, CGGVeritas Eidesvik Ship Management AS, will be based in Bergen, and is 51 % owned by Eidesvik and 49 % owned by CGGVeritas. The CEO of Eidesvik Offshore, Jan Fredrik Meling, will be Chairman of the Board of Directors for the new joint-venture.
“This is a milestone in Eidesvik’s efforts to be a powerhouse for new and innovative ship and operational solutions. This partnership is a strategically important step for Eidesvik. We believe there is great potential to be had in joining forces with our customer in areas where we have strategically linked knowledge and skills,” says Eidesvik CEO, Jan Fredrik Meling.
Eidesvik and CGGVeritas have built a strong partnership over the last 14 years.The joint venture marks a step-change in the way CGGVeritas operates its high-end seismic vessels by creating an integrated team of expertise dedicated to ship management to fully support and develop the performance of the fleet.
Jean-Georges Malcor, CEO of CGGVeritas , said: “This new joint venture is a key step in our performance action plan. It builds a strong partnership that is focused on shared objectives around the operational excellence of our marine fleet and supports our plans to streamline the number of our maritime partners. I look forward to working closer with our long-term partner Eidesvik to further strengthen our business in the future.”
Eidesvik Offshore and CGGVeritas will both contribute resources and support to the joint venture. By mid- year, its onshore team will be manned with highly qualified personnel from both parent companies.
The vessels operated by the new Ship Management company will be: Oceanic Vega, Oceanic Endeavour, Geowave Champion,Viking Vision,Viking Vanquish, Veritas Viking, Geowave Voyager, Veritas Vantage, Viking II and the newbuild XBow SX 120, to be named Oceanic Sirius.
With this transfer, the charterparties for four of Eidesvik’s vessels will be converted from timecharter to bareboatcharter in addition to the contracts for Viking Vanquish and Oceanic Vega, which are already on bareboatcharter. With this change the firm contract period is extended by 1 year for Veritas Viking, 2 years for Viking II, 4 years for Veritas Vantage and 2 years for Viking Vision. The bareboat rates reflects the EBITDA in existing timecharter rates .
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Source: Eidesvik/CGGVeritas, May 2, 2011;