Bulgarian Shipyard strikes most lucrative deal ever

Bulgaria's Bulyard Shipbuilding Industry (BSI) struck an 82.2 million U.S. dollars deal with Diler Shipping and Trading of Turkey, the most lucrative order of the Varna-based shipbuilder to date.

Officials from Industrial holding Bulgaria, the 61.5 per cent owner of Bulyard and a former privatisation fund, were quoted by Dnevnik business daily on October 3 as saying the deal entails the commissioning of two ships, weighing 55 500 tonnes each. The first ship is scheduled for handover in December 2009, the second in September 2010. The addition to Bulyard's order log comes a month after a deal with Bulgaria's Navigation Maritime Bulgare for the construction of three ships collectively valued at 55.6 million euros. The first, smaller, ship is scheduled to go out of the dock in 2009 and the other two by the end of 2011.

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Euroseas expands fleet

Euroseas Ltd. an owner and operator of drybulk carriers, container ship and multipurpose vessels and provider of seaborne transportation for drybulk and containerized cargoes, signed a MoA to purchase the M/V Trust Jakarta, a Panamax drybulk vessel of 64,873 dwt built in 1984 in Japan.

The M/V Trust Jakarta was acquired for approximately $28.6 million and comes with a period charter attached until July 2008 at a rate of $35,500 per day. The vessel will be delivered to the Company between October 15 and November 15, 2007 at the sellers option and will be renamed M/V Ioanna P. This will be the seventh vessel to be purchased this year and the fourth since our follow-on equity offering in June 2007.

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Maersk awarded jack-up drilling contract

Maersk Contractors has been awarded a contract by Dubai Petroleum Establishment for Jack-up drilling operations offshore Dubai in the Arabian Gulf.

The drilling contract has a duration of three years and will commence when the rig arrives in Dubai at the end of the first quarter in 2008. The mobilisation from the construction yard in Singapore to Dubai is estimated to take 15 days. The rig is the first in a series of four identical high efficiency jack up drilling rigs presently under construction for Maersk Contractors at KeppeIFELS Shipyard in Singapore. This latest generation 106-metre jack up rig, which has yet to be named, distances itself from conventional jack ups in several areas, not least on the drill floor where the highly mechanised equipment leads to increased safety for the crew.

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Efforts in progress to rescue typhoon-trapped cargo ship

Rescuers in East China's Zhejiang Province are making efforts to rescue a Hong Kong-registered cargo ship, which has 27 International crew members aboard, trapped in typhoon "Krosa".

The cargo ship, ALADDIN DREAM, was 27.78 kilometers off Wenling, southeast Zhejiang on Saturday morning, because of motor malfunction. Rescue ships failed to approach the cargo ship because of billows triggered by the strong typhoon "Krosa", which is slamming its way onto the Chinese mainland. The trapped 27 crew members include sailors from Russia, India and the Philippines.

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RIL, ONGC, BG to invest $1 bn for developing PMT fields

Reliance Industries, ONGC and BG, which jointly operate the Panna Mukta and Tapti (PMT) oil and gas fields in Western offshore, are planning to invest about $1 billion in the next few years to improve productivity from the area.

The three partners plan to increase production by about 60% by 2009, said petroleum minister Murli Deora while dedicating the new Tapti Compression and Processing Platform (TCPP) to the nation at a ceremony held in Mumbai. The PMT fields account for 8% of India's total hydrocarbon production and its gas output has increased by 48% to feed the nation's growing demand for energy. Gas output from the PMT fields has risen to 17 million metric standard cubic meters per day with investment of $500 million from the JV partners.

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