Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) has announced that it is to build three shuttle tankers for Teekay Offshore Partners, at a total price of $365m and the contract includes an option for an extra vessel.
The contract was signed in Oslo where Nor-Shipping 2015 was held. As for the contract value, while SHI says that the three tankers cost USD 330 million, for Teekay it is USD 365 million.
The tankers ordered are 155,000DWT shuttle tankers that are 293m long and 49m wide, and they will be delivered by February 2018.
Both SHI and Teekay Offshore have said that the tankers will be used to transport crude oil from offshore oilfields off east Canada.
Shuttle tankers are oil tankers that transport crude oil extracted from marine oil fields to storage bases on the ground. They are widely used in the North Sea, the east of Canada and the sea of Brazil.
Shuttle tankers are equipped with advanced position controlling systems including the Dynamic Positioning System so that they can maintain their location while on the sea, without being affected by waves, winds and currents, and stably position themselves alongside the oil production facilities.
Teekay Offshore Partners has entered into new 15-year contracts with a consortium of energy companies to provide shuttle tanker services for oil production activities in East Coast Canada.
The companies include Chevron Canada, Husky Energy, Mosbacher Operating, Murphy Oil, Nalcor Energy, Statoil and Suncor Energy.
Samsung Heavy Industries has won orders for 43 shuttle tankers out of the 114 shuttle tankers ordered worldwide, giving it the world’s No. 1 market share. The company won orders for 10 container ships, 11 oil tankers and 2 LNG carriers worth about USD 2.9 billion in total.