SMIT AND KEPPEL STRENGTHEN SHEERLEGS JOINT VENTURE

Smit International of the Netherlands and Keppel FELS of Singapore are strengthening their Asian Lift joint venture by passing ownership to it of Smit’s 1,200t-capacity Taklift 6 and 400t Smit Typhoon sheerlegs as well as Keppel FELS’s 1,600t Asian Hercules and 400t Asian Helping Hand III.

Under the agreement, which takes effect from 1 September, Smit International Singapore will continue to manage the sheerlegs owned and operated by Asian Lift.

Further cementing the relationship, Keppel FELS’s 3,200t Asian Hercules II will join Smit’s heavy lift operations in Europe for three years. Because of this, Smit has scrapped plans to upgrade Taklift 8 to a 3,000t-capacity vessel, which was to have been designated Taklift 10.

The first assignment of Asian Hercules II will be a series of 18 heavy lifts of up to 2,300t over a two week period in the first quarter of 2000 for the Terra Nova FPSO, which is to be outfitted at Bull Arm, Newfoundland. The Terra Nova FPSO, being built by Daewoo in Korea, will be the first FPSO (floating production, storage and offloading vessel) to be deployed offshore Canada.