Otto Marine announces sale and leaseback of one AHTS at US$100million

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Otto Marine Limited a leading offshore chartering group, which owns and operates more than 60 offshore support vessels globally, and also engaged in specialized shipbuilding, repair and conversion of offshore support vessels has announced that its shipyard division has sold an Anchor Handling Tug Supply Vessel to a renowned unrelated third party (the “Buyer”) for US$100 million.

DNV classed and Norwegian-designed, the VS491 21,000bhp AHTS is a hybrid propulsion diesel electric driven vessel with dynamic positioning 2 (DP2) technology measuring 91.5m in length and 22.5m wide and has a bollard pull of 240 to 260 tonnes.

The Vessel can also operate and handle large rigs in the ultra-deepwater region including the harshest environments of the North Sea region.

This AHTS is the 4th and final of the VS491 series the Group has built in this batch and is currently under construction at Otto Marine’s shipyard in Batam, Indonesia, and is expected to be completed in 2Q2015.

GO Offshore (L) Private Limited, a subsidiary of the Group, will charter the vessel for 8 years upon the completion of the vessel.

The US$100million transaction is expected to have a positive contribution to the consolidated net tangible assets per share and earnings per share of the Group for the OTTO MARINE LIMITED financial year ending 31 December 2014.

Group Executive Director Michael See says the Group that is a leading OSV charterer in Indonesia, Australia, Mexico, Africa  continues to view shipyard as an integral part of its main offshore chartering business.

“While the OSV market turned increasingly competitive given the recent regional developments and the instability of oil prices, the sale of the AHTS vessel and recent delivery of a subsea IMR vessel, once again, demonstrated our shipyard capability in shipbuilding and conversion of larger and complex OSVs, as well as our reputation among customers,” he says.

In addition to the sale and leaseback of the AHTS and the recently delivered Subsea and IMR (Inspection, Maintenance and Repair) vessel currently deployed in Australia, the Group will be delivering four AHTS vessels to a renowned unrelated third party Indonesia customer in the next two months.

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