Fugro terminates Forland vessel charter

Fugro Subsea Services has terminated for convenience its time charter for the Fugro Saltire multi-purpose offshore vessel. 

Forland Subsea II AS, which bareboat charters the Fugro Saltire from E Forland AS, has received a notice of termination from time charterers Fugro Subsea Services.

E Forland said on Wednesday that the termination will be effective as from October 1, 2017.

Forland Subsea II AS will pursue any potential claims for losses arising out of the termination from Fugro Subsea Services, the company added.

The obligations of Fugro Subsea Services are guaranteed under a parent company guarantee issued by Fugro N.V.

Fugro Saltire is a purpose-built, deepwater ROV vessel, designed to meet the demands of the trenching, remote intervention, construction and survey markets. It has been with Fugro since its delivery in 2008.

The vessel was designed in close cooperation with Skipsteknisk and based on the Forland Ship Design. Fugro Saltire is equipped with a 150 t AHC knuckle boom crane designed to deploy full rated load to 3,000 meters (single fall), plus a separate 10 t auxiliary subsea crane with 1,000 meter fall.

Forland has one more vessel in its fleet, the Lewek Inspector, which is also without work since early 2017. The 2013-built vessel was renamed at the end of July to Forland Inspector.

The vessel was previously under charter with Ezra’s subsidiary Emas AMC. After Emas missed the payment for the vessel in October 2016, Forland in February served Ezra, as a guarantor, a statutory demand seeking payment of approximately NOK25.5 million owed to it by Emas.

Meanwhile, the vessel was hired for a three-week gig in February. In connection with this, Forland and Emas entered into a stand-still agreement for the duration of the short- term charter, which allowed Forland to charter the Lewek Inspector without terminating the charter party with Emas AMC.

Come March and the charter guarantor, Singapore’s Ezra, filed voluntary petitions for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code.

Offshore Energy Today reached out to Forland asking about the impact this termination will have on the company. We are yet to receive any response.

OSM Offshore is the manager of Forland’s both vessels since early 2017.

Offshore Energy Today Staff