Nam Cheong books orders for new AHTS design

OCTOBER 17, 2014 — Malaysia’s largest Offshore Support Vessel (OSV) shipbuilder, Singapore-listed Nam Cheong Limited, has launched the first AHTS built to its new, proprietary, NCA80E design. It already holds letters of intent worth $186 million for 12 of the vessels, with options for eight more.

The 64.8m NCA80E is an 80 ton bollard pull, DP2 design, ABS class, diesel-electric vessel. Nam Cheong says it has an energy efficient design thanks to efficient hull lines and is equipped with “selected electric drives which lead to lower fuel consumption without a loss in power to the electric drives due to the vessel design’s exploitation of newer technologies.”

Nam Cheong says the vessel features a simplified design and is “Asianized” to allow for an efficient building process. Features include medium-speed controllable-pitch thrusters and low pressure system anchor handling or towing winches

The vessel has oil spill recovery capabilities.

Repeat customer, Bumi Armada intends to order four vessels with the option for four additional vessels. In addition, an LOI for two vessels has been secured from another repeat customer, Norway-based Vega Offshore, which has a presence in Brazil, to facilitate its fleet expansion program.

LOIs have also been secured from new customers, Geooffshore, Opstad and Sofield.

Registered in Singapore, Geooffshore is an emerging OSV owner, controlled by Singapore businessman, Mr. Farid Khan, who is also the regional managing director of an international service provider leader in the offshore oil and gas industry. Geooffshore intends to order four NCA80E vessels and also has an option for four more.

Opstad is an established OSV owner and seismic support operator based in Norway while Sofield is a Sabahan-owned emerging offshore and marine company based in Malaysia.

The NCA80E vessels are being constructed as part of Nam Cheong’s build-to-stock series in its Miri shipyard in Sarawak, East Malaysia as well as its subcontracted yards in China.