Polarcus Inks Five Year BBCP Agreement with Russian OAO Sovcomflot

Polarcus Limited announces that the Company has signed a five year Bareboat Charter Party Agreement (BBCP) with OAO Sovcomflot (SCF) of Russia. Under the terms of the BBCP Sovcomflot will charter POLARCUS SELMA, inclusive of an 8 streamer seismic equipment package, from Polarcus at a rate of USD 69,500 per day. The BBCP, viewed by both parties as the first step towards a larger strategic business alliance to serve the growing Russian seismic market, will commence in August 2011. The BBCP terms include a purchase option of the vessel commencing after the third anniversary of the BBCP.

In conjunction with the BBCP, Polarcus has signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) with SCF for the provision of certain specialist onboard crew and shore-based services and systems support. The provision of the services, to be charged in addition to the BBCP, is subject to a final agreement between the parties expected to be signed in the latter part of August 2011.

Peter Zickerman, EVP Polarcus, commented: “This important agreement will afford Polarcus and Sovcomflot unparalleled access to the Russian market and most significantly to possibly the world’s last and largest oil frontier, the Arctic. There is very good synergy between our companies, with our own strategic focus on the Arctic frontier and investment into Arctic-ready technologies, and Sovcomflot’s leadership in key Russian oil and gas development projects in harsh ice environments. We believe the BBCP and the LOI for support services will be just the beginning of a long and successful relationship with Russia’s largest shipping company as they aspire to broaden their focus from energy transportation to energy supply.”

POLARCUS SELMA is a sister ship to POLARCUS SAMUR, an ultra-modern and Arctic-ready 3D seismic vessel of the ULSTEIN SX133 X-BOW design capable of towing both conventional and wide tow spreads. The vessel has an overall length of 84.2m and a beam of 17m. POLARCUS SELMA has a maximum speed of 17 knots and will be capable of deploying up to 8 streamers each of 6,000m length, or 6 streamers each of 8,000m length, with lateral streamer separations of between 25 and 200 meters.

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Source: Polarcus, August 11, 2011.