Mermaid Maritime Public Company Limited announced that the Group has chartered in three additional vessels in the past month to take on new projects, on the back of strong demand for its services.
The Group has recently chartered-in the ‘Siem Daya 2’, an offshore subsea construction vessel to provide subsea cable laying installation support services in the Middle East for an upstream national oil and gas major.
The ‘Siem Daya 2’ will be on hire until early January 2015 with options for further extension depending on additional work availability.
In October 2014, the Group also chartered-in the ‘Mubarak Carrier’, a construction barge for short term work on subsea cable lay trenching support in the Middle East for an upstream national oil and gas major as well as the ‘Harkand Harmony’, a remotely-operated vehicle (“ROV”) and survey support vessel for gas detection work in the Gulf of Thailand for an international upstream oil and gas major. Both charters will cater to additional short-term customer requirements scheduled to be completed this November 2014.
These charter-in vessels join the Group’s owns fleet of seven subsea vessels.
In addition to doubling the existing subsea fleet size and thus maintaining a healthy mix between owned-vessels and chartered-in vessels, Mermaid’s charter-in vessels also bring with them added competitive advantage to Mermaid. In particular, the ‘Siem Daya 2’ and the ‘Bourbon Evolution’ are state-of-the-art DP3 subsea vessels recently delivered from their respective shipyards and the ‘Mubarak Supporter’ is a newly built DP2 construction barge. The ‘Endeavour’ and ‘Resolution’ also have their own edge in being modern Indonesian flagged vessels thus enabling Mermaid to operate in Indonesia’s cabotage markets.
Chalermchai Mahagitsiri , Chief Executive Officer of Mermaid said, “ With many of our key assets serving existing contracts, the Group has had to charter-in additional vessels to fulfill strong demand for our scope of services, bringing our operational fleet up to 14.
“ The brisk business done by our subsea services segment is testimony that our shallow water biased fleet remains in strong demand globally. These recent additions also enhance Mermaid’s reputation by leading the way in the deployment of a technologically advanced and modern fleet. With an overall order book of USD 470 million and the potential for more near-term contract wins; we are optimistic that our plans for product and geographical expansion remain on track.”
Mermaid has been regularly awarded contracts for new jobs, with the most recent being USD45 million worth of contracts for subsea works in the Middle East announced in September 2014 . The Group is looking to boost its order book by participating in the bidding process for a promising pipeline of contracts scheduled to begin in 2015. The current outstanding order book of USD470 million, mostly to be performed in 2015 and 2016, will keep the Group busy with a steady flow of activities.