Norwegian ship builder Vard Holdings, part of Italian group Ficantieri, recently announced that it secured a contract to build an offshore subsea construction vessel for Norwegian group Solstad Offshore, which will be partly built in the Romanian shipyard Vard Tulcea.

This is the largest single vessel contract in the company’s history, Vard has said, without mentioning its value. Analysts estimate that the value of this contract could be between EUR 180 million and EUR 240 million.

The hull of the vessel will be built by the Vard shipyard in Tulcea. It will be 180 meters long, 33 meters wide, and will have a deck area of some 2,500 square meters.

The vessel, which will be the largest in the Solstad fleet as well as the largest ever constructed by Vard, will have a 550 ton top tension vertical lay system, enabling the installation of large diameter flexible pipes in ultra-deep water and in harsher environments. In addition, it will feature a 600-ton active heave compensated offshore crane and a 4,000 ton under-deck carousel for storage of flexible pipes, cables and umbilicals.

The delivery of this project is scheduled for the second quarter of 2016.

Vard also announced that its Tulcea shipyard will build the hull for a EUR 123 million offshore support vessel designed by Rolls Royce, for Island Offshore group and a hull for an offshore construction and anchor handling vessel worth EUR 100 million, for Rem Offshore.

The Tulcea shipyard builds the hulls, which are the steel structures of the ships, which will be equipped in Vard’s shipyards in Brattvaag and Brevik, Norway.

The company also announced that it signed a contract for the delivery of two platform supply vessels for Nordic American Offshore. The hulls for these ships will be built in Vard’s other Romanian shipyard in Braila.

Vard Holdings Limited is one of the major global designers and shipbuilders of offshore and specialized vessels used in the offshore oil and gas exploration and production and oil services industries. Headquartered in Norway and with 10,000 employees, Vard operates ten strategically located shipbuilding facilities, five in Norway, two in Romania, two in Brazil and one in Vietnam.

The company is controlled by Italian group Fincantieri and is listed on the Singapore Exchange. It has a market capitalization of some EUR 760 million.

Andrei Chirileasa, andrei@romania-insider.com