Dubai company Topaz Energy and Marine has secured new multi-year charters with the 1.3billion barrels Russian Filanovsky project in the northern sector of the Caspian Sea for nine of its offshore support vessels.
The work is worth about $20million and the vessels are deployed through Italian offshore contracting major Saipem. They will provide anchor-handling and tug services as well as transport of supplies and personnel.
According to chief operating officer, Roy Donaldson, the Russian sector of the Caspian offers exciting prospects for Topaz.
Moreover, he claimed that the fleet being deployed is young, diverse, well-equipped, and can stand up to the challenge of working in harsh climates and arduous environmental conditions like in the northern Caspian.
“We also enjoy a good working relationship with Saipem having worked with them for several years in their projects in Kazakhstan. Following Saipem into this new market is a natural transition for Topaz and we now have significant operations in the four corners of the Caspian Sea.”
Topaz has been operating in the Caspian Sea since the acquisition of BUE Caspian in 2005 and currently has more than 60 offshore support vessels in the region. Donaldson was previously with BUE as general manager.
The company also recently sent its new-build anchor-handling tug supply vessels Topaz Dignity and Topaz Triumph to the Caspian for work in the Azeri sector.
Topaz Dignity has gone on long-term contract to BP performing anchor-handling, tug, support, and supply duties. The Triumph is working for Total, supporting the French oil major’s seismic campaigns ahead of field development.
These two latest additions to the Topaz fleet are 7,300 horsepower anchor-handling tug supply vessels equipped for fire-fighting class 1 (FiFi-1) and dynamic positioning (DP2) operations.
Topaz operates a fleet of more than 90 offshore support vessels with an average age of 7.5 years. The company is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Renaissance Services SAOG, a publicly traded company on the Muscat Securities Market, Oman.