The new owners of Seajacks are clearly employing a strategy to expand the company's vessel fleet, with news that the English company has handed Lamprell a $120.9m contract to build it a new self-propelled jack-up vessel. It will be capable of serving both the offshore wind and offshore oil and gas industries.
Seajacks has been owned since March by two Japanese organisations - Marubeni, and public-private partnership, Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ). The announcement that its has ordered a new vessel comes just weeks after it took delivery of the offshore wind-specific jack-up, Zaratan.
The new vessel will be known as Seajacks Hydra and is scheduled for delivery in 2014. Its design is based on a modified Gusto MSC NG2500X and it will boast a 400t crane. Lamprell will build it at its Hamriyah yard in the United Arab Emirates.
A well-known rig builder, Lamprell has built three previous vessels for Seajacks and was also responsible for constructing Fred Olsen Windcarrier's new vessel, Brave Tern. In May, London-listed Lamprell issued a profit warning and saw its share price fall. A primary factor in the profit warning were cost over-runs associated with construction of its two latest offshore wind vessels: Seajacks' Zaratan and Fred Olsen Windcarrier's Brave Tern. Nevertheless, news of this latest Seajacks order prompted a healthy jump in Lamprell's share price.
Commenting on the decision to order Hydra, Seajacks group chief executive, Blair Ainslie, said: "She will be Seajacks' fourth vessel and a similar design to Kracken and Leviathan."
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