On Wednesday, 9^th November 2016, KT Maritime celebrated the naming ceremony of two Infield Support Vessels (ISVs) at ASL Shipyards in Singapore.

The ISVs are the most powerful and sophisticated Rotortugs®in the world, purpose-built to support Shell’s FLNG facility Prelude. Prelude FLNG is the largest floating liquefied natural gas facility ever constructed and will produce and export LNG off the coast of Australia. The Prelude FLNG facility will be located in the Prelude and Concerto gas fields in the Browse LNG Basin 200 kilometres (120 mi) off the coast of Australia.

Together with a third ISV which was completed earlier this year, the vessels will be employed to manoeuvre LNG and LPG carriers alongside the Prelude, as well as assist with condensate offtakes, emergency response and personnel transfer.

Mr. Ard-Jan Kooren, Director of KT Maritime and acting CEO of KOTUG stated, “This is a historic moment for KT Maritime as well as ASL Shipyards. With the development of FLNGs, natural gas production is moving in a new direction and our new ISVs are at the vanguard to support that development.”

One of the two sponsor ladies who christened the new vessels was long-serving and well-respected Shell employee Mrs. Susan Beattie, who thanked ASL’s management, KT Maritime’s site management and all their shipyard employees for their hard work on this project. This was seconded by sponsor lady Mrs. Mimoza Anderson, the wife of KT Maritime’s Business Development Manager Mr. Jamie Anderson, who added “KT Maritime are extremely privileged to be part of such a historic project, our team is extremely excited to take on the responsibility of pioneering the use of infield support vessels in supporting a FLNG facility”.

The christening and delivery of the RT Kuri Bay, RT Roebuck Bay and RT Beagle Bay is one of many major milestones shared with ASL Shipyards, with ASL having built a total of 21 RotorTugs® to date, which KT Ang acknowledged during his address as a proud achievement for ASL and a testament to the relationship between them, KT Maritime and KOTUG.