The yard said Norway’s Solstad Offshore will take delivery of the offshore subsea construction vessel (OSCV) in the second quarter of 2016.
The Vard 3 19 design will be built at Vard Tulcea in Romania, with outfitting to follow at Vard Brattvaag in Norway.
It will also be Solstad’s largest vessel.
The ship will come with a 550-ton vertical-lay system (VLS) for pipe-laying in deep water, plus a 600-ton active-heave compensated (AHC) crane.
The large VLS and AHC crane place the ship into the high-end segment for subsea umbilicals, risers and flowlines (SURF).
These SURF capabilities, the size of the ship at a huge 180 metres and its large 2,500 metres of square deck space all mean the price tag will be fairly high. Subsea market sources estimate the ship could be priced as high as $330m.
