France: Bourbon Offshore Maritima to Deliver 13 New Vessels to Petrobras

Bourbon Offshore Maritima, formerly Delba Maritima Navegacao, the BOURBON subsidiary inBrazil, has strengthened its position on the Brazilian market by signing contracts with Petrobras for 13 new vessels.

The contracts cover:

– 1 Bourbon Liberty 200, an 80-tonne traction AHTS (Anchor Handling Tug Supply vessel), for three years from May 2010;

– 7 Bourbon Liberty 100, a PSV (Platform Supply Vessel), for four years.

These vessels will be put into service between June and October 2010;

– 5 18-metre passenger transport crew boats, for 8 years. These vessels will join other vessels of the same type that have already been

working for Petrobras in Brazil for two years and have given full satisfaction.

Christian Lefevre, Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer of BOURBON announced:

“We are delighted to have been selected by Petrobras. This is a real boost to BOURBON in its strategy of investing in innovative high-performance vessels that help clients reduce their costs, in particular through our Bourbon Liberty series. It also demonstrates that the offshore market in Brazil offers numerous development opportunities that BOURBON is well equipped to support, through its subsidiary Bourbon Offshore Maritima, by offering our full array of services and technical expertise from a local base.”

With 40 Bourbon Liberty vessels currently in service, these contracts for 8 new vessels underline the success of this range of vessels whose features are ideally suited both to continental offshore and deepwater offshore.

Bourbon Offshore Maritima’s fleet will thus be increased from 17 vessels (11 supply and 6 boats) to 30 vessels (19 supply and 11 crew boats) between now and the end of the year.

Bourbon Offshore Maritima, formerly Delba Maritima Navegacao, is the subsidiary of the BOURBON Group in Brazil. With 515 employees based at 5 locations, it currently operates 17 vessels. It was created in 1970, and from 2001 was co-owned by BOURBON in a joint venture with its founders. Buy-out agreements were signed at the end of December 2009.

BOURBON offers a broad range of offshore oil and gas marine services. Under its strategic plan BOURBON intends to become the leader in modern offshore oil and gas marine services by offering the most demanding clients worldwide, a full line of innovative, high performance and new-generation vessels and a modular offer of Inspection, Maintenance and Repair services, with the launch of its new “Subsea Services” Activity.

BOURBON also specializes in bulk transport and protects the French coastline for the French Navy.

Classified by ICB (Industry Classification Benchmark) in the “Oil Services” sector, BOURBON is listed for trading on Euronext Paris, Compartment A, and is included in the Deferred Settlement Service SRD and in the SBF 120 and Dow Jones Stoxx 600 indices.

[mappress]

bourbon-online, May 5, 2010;