Keppel delivers vessel trio for Lukoil’s Caspian Sea oil field

Singapore’s Keppel Singmarine Pte, a shipbuilding branch of Keppel Offshore & Marine Ltd (Keppel O&M), is set to hand over three ice-class vessels on Malaysia’s Bumi Armada.

The vessels – two supply vessels and one multi-purpose duty-rescue vessel – were named Bumi Uray, Bumi Pokachi & Bumi Naryan-Mar respectively in a ceremony at Keppel Singmarine on Thursday, September 10, 2015.

Once delivered will support offshore platforms at the Lukoil-operated Vladimir Filanovsky oil field in the northern part of the Caspian Sea, off the coast of Russia. The vessels will be providing year-round services such as the delivery of cargoes, salvage, search and rescue functions, fire-fighting operations, and towing and tanker mooring operations.

Michael Chia, Managing Director (Marine & Technology), Keppel O&M, said: “We are pleased to once again support Bumi Armada with three highly sophisticated vessels. We were able to leverage our expertise in ice-class technology and in-depth knowledge of the Caspian region to customise these three high specification ice-class vessels to suit their needs. We are confident that they will be a success in the harsh environments of the Caspian Sea.

“With the completion of the vessels, Keppel Singmarine would have delivered a total of 10 ice-class vessels, helping us to further strengthen our position in the specialised market of ice-class vessels.

“In building the vessels, we were able to maximise resources and increase efficiencies by harnessing the synergy of Keppel’s network of yards. Two of the supply vessels were built at Keppel Nantong in China while the multi-purpose vessel was constructed in Keppel Singmarine’s yard in Singapore.”

The ice-class supply vessels and the multi-purpose duty rescue vessel are built to the MTD 8060-TS and MTD 8060-RV designs respectively, which are developed by Keppel O&M’s ship design and development arm, Marine Technology Development.