Swire Pacific Offshore expands fleet with ‘Pacific Leader’ PSV

Shipowner and operator, Swire Pacific Offshore Operations (Pte) Ltd (SPO) celebrated the naming of its first L-Class vessel, Pacific Leader in Japan on Friday, 28 March 2014.

The naming ceremony of Pacific Leader was held 10.30 am at Maizuru Shipyard, Japan Marine United Corporation (JMU), Japan. The event was graced by Lady Sponsor, Mrs Mary Kilgour, wife of Finance Director of Swire Pacific Limited, Mr Peter Kilgour.

“The L-Class series of large PSVs is another important step in the growth and development of Swire Pacific Offshore’s fleet. With a fuel efficient modern design and a high quality, high specification build, we are confident these large capacity vessels will offer our customers an exceptionally reliable, economical and flexible solution to their offshore marine support needs and continue to enhance SPO’s capabilities as a leading maritime services provider,” says Managing Director of SPO, Neil Glenn.

Pacific Leader is the first of a series of eight L-Class vessels that SPO has commissioned. Four vessels will be built by JMU in Japan and the balance four vessels will be built in Brazil. Upon its delivery, Pacific Leader will be going straight into a charter contract.

“JMU is honoured to work with leading shipowner and operator, SPO on the construction of their first L-Class vessel. SPO and JMU share similar corporate values in terms of a constant strive for excellence and a strong emphasis on high safety and environmental standards. We believe that this series of high quality platform supply vessels will generate strong interest and demand within the global oil & gas industry,” says Managing Director of JMU, Masaaki Kenko.

Today, SPO owns and operates a diverse fleet of 85 offshore support vessels, including anchor handling tug supply vessels, platform supply vessels, ice-breaking supply vessels, anchor handling tugs, seismic survey vessels, wind-farm installation vessels, accommodation vessels and multi-purpose offshore vessels. SPO will have a fleet of 100 vessels by the end of 2015.

The L-Class vessels (5258 DWT), with the fuel-saving design, consisting of newly developed fuel efficient propulsion pods, a four-engine diesel electric power plant, large cargo carrying capacity and bulk cargo system, makes them well suited for supply duties in deep water environments. The propulsion system features a computerised power management system that is programmable to ensure the optimisation of the diesel engine load and fuel consumption. The Cargomaxx bulk system allows for the carriage of dry and wet bulk cargoes in 5 separate tanks, uses a pressure vacuum system to load and upload the cargo and has a product weighing system to accurately measure a product delivered as an individual parcel or as an aggregated amount over a period of time. These FiFi 1, DP2 vessels are also SPS Compliant and Clean Class.