GC Rieber subsea newbuild gets GoM contract

Norway’s GC Rieber Shipping has signed a two year contract with the Mexican company Oceanografia for its second subsea newbuild . The vessel, which will be named Polar Queen, has recently been handed over from Freire Shipyard, Spain.The Oceanografia contract will start up in November.

Three of the four vessels in the GC Rieber newbuilding program have now been delivered and all of them are on hire. – “With the whole fleet engaged, we are very well positioned going forward,” says CEO Irene Waage Basili.

Oceanografia has more than forty years experience in offshore contracting and operates a substantial fleet of owned and chartered vessels in the Gulf of Mexico. Polar Queen will operate on a contract for the Mexican state oil company PEMEX. “This is the first contract in the Gulf of Mexico for GC Rieber Shipping, and gives us presence in a new and growing market for us,” says Ms. Basili.

Polar Queen is 110.6 meters long and has a beam of 20 meters. She is equipped with a 150 ton offshore AHC crane, has accommodations capacity for 112 people and a deck area of 1,000 square meters. The vessel is designed by Skipsteknisk and meets the latest environmental standards through the class designation “Clean Design”.

With the delivery of the Polar Queen, only one vessel remains in GC Rieber’s ongoing newbuilding program, the seismic vessel yn 533. The seismic operator Dolphin Geophysical has an option to charter this vessel.
October 20, 2011