Hybrid AHTS tender

Last Friday, Petrobras received offers for the AHTS tender with hybrid propulsion (battery packs). The opportunity aims the hire of up to 2 vessels for a 4-year firm contract period with mobilization expected between July and September this year or 120 days after contract signature, whichever occurs latest. There was some concern over the battery packs requirement however, even with many requests not accepted by Petrobras during the tender process and several postponements of the submission deadline, the opportunity displayed a decent number of competitors, granted this was the first ever public tender to demand a hybrid propulsion solution. Amongst a total of 9 vessels presented to Petrobras, CBO snatched the first two places at USD 39.650,00/day with their AHTSs acquired from Finarge – AH Liguria and AH Valletta. Although bidders had to comply with the battery requirement, the winning rates did not wander too far from the USD 35.000 winning day rate in the previous AHTS tender which did not require any kind of hybrid propulsion. Despite not waiving the hybrid propulsion while understanding the technical and logistics challenges involved in such adaptation, Petrobras granted the awarded vessels a 12 month-window from the start of the contract to be fully compliant with this requirement.