VARD has signed a sales and purchase agreement (SPA) for the sale of the diving support and construction vessel previously contracted by Harkand Group.
The SPA is signed with an undisclosed international customer, the company informed.
The original contract with Harkand had been announced on December 30, 2013, followed by an update announcement in May 2016 when the company was notified that Harkand had entered into administration.
VARD has now cancelled the original contract with Harkand’s administration to facilitate entering into the new agreement.
The sale of the vessel will allow VARD to reduce the capital employed by eliminating a vessel from its inventory and reduce its liabilities by reimbursing the related construction loan with a direct benefit from lower financial charges going forward. As an additional consequence of the reimbursement of the construction loan, the company will benefit from the release of the cash posted as collateral in favor of the lending bank with a correspondent positive impact on the liquidity position of the company, VARD explained.
The vessel is of VARD 3 03 design, specially designed and equipped for diving and subsea operation duties. The vessel is outfitted with a 250 ton offshore crane and a twin bell 18 man saturation diving system, supporting split level diving operations to a maximum diving depth of 300 meters.
Delivery is scheduled from Vard Søviknes in Q1 2019, and the vessel will in the meantime be finalized, tested and prepared for operations.