Por Onde Anda? Skandi Peregrino
Sixteen years after arriving in Brazil to work on the field that gave it its name, Skandi Peregrino has changed hands again.
On October 2, DDW Offshore completed the sale of the AHTS for approximately US$21.6 million. Peregrino was DDW’s last remaining vessel, meaning the transaction also marks the company’s exit from vessel ownership.
Its new home is equally relevant.
The vessel was delivered to Anchor Australia AS, which has now become part of the large-AHTS platform being assembled by 2020 Bulkers. The group currently controls 12 vessels, with another three contracted for delivery during the fourth quarter. If completed, those transactions will take the fleet to 15 units.
For Peregrino, it is another change in a career closely linked to Brazil.
Built in Vietnam in 2010, the 75-metre DP2 AHTS arrived almost directly from the shipyard in late December that year for a two-year contract with Statoil, now Equinor, on the Peregrino field in the Campos Basin.
The vessel was officially named in Rio de Janeiro in early 2011, shortly before first oil from the field.
And the relationship lasted much longer than the initial contract.
In 2012, the Statoil charter was extended by another two years plus a one-year option. In 2015, Norskan secured a further two-year contract for Skandi Peregrino, with two additional one-year options.
By then, the vessel had spent most of its working life connected to the Brazilian field.
Then the offshore market changed.
Skandi Peregrino entered warm lay-up in June 2020 and remained out of active service for almost four years.
In 2023, DDW secured a US$31 million refinancing that included funding for the vessel’s reactivation. Peregrino subsequently underwent SPS and reactivation work before returning to operation in May 2024.
Its comeback was not entirely straightforward.
The vessel mobilized to Australia in January 2025 for a new one-year contract. Technical issues delayed the planned March start until June, leaving Peregrino with only 11% utilization during the second quarter.
The issues were subsequently resolved, and the vessel returned to high utilization.
At almost the same time, DDW was trying to sell it.
In March 2025, the company agreed to sell Skandi Peregrino for US$25 million. Completion depended on the charterer’s consent to transfer the vessel contract to the proposed buyer.
The consent never came.
Two months later, the transaction was cancelled after the charterer declined to novate the contract.
Peregrino remained with DDW and continued working in Australia. By September 2026, DOF reported the vessel working for Woodside in the Bass Strait.
Then came the second attempt to sell it.
This time, it went through.
On October 2, Skandi Peregrino changed hands for approximately US$21.6 million.
The comparison with the unsuccessful US$25 million transaction in 2025 is interesting, but it should not be read simply as a decline in vessel value. Contract conditions, timing and transaction structures were different.
The bigger story is what happened to the asset between those two transactions.
An AHTS that spent almost four years in lay-up was reactivated, returned to high utilization in Australia and has now been acquired as part of a much larger bet on the anchor-handling market.
2020 Bulkers spent most of its history in dry bulk and sold its Newcastlemax fleet earlier this year. It is now building one of the industry’s largest platforms focused on large AHTSs.
Its investment thesis is based on an ageing global fleet and limited new supply. According to the company, only one large AHTS has been delivered since 2018, there is effectively no orderbook and current asset values remain around 40% below estimated newbuild parity.
Skandi Peregrino is now part of that strategy.
At the same time, its sale closes another chapter.
DDW Offshore, previously DOF Deepwater, was established around a series of large AHTSs built in Vietnam. Following restructuring and several years of asset sales, Peregrino was the last vessel remaining.
Its departure leaves DDW without a fleet.
For Skandi Peregrino, however, the story continues.
It arrived in Brazil during the previous offshore investment cycle, spent years supporting the field that gave it its name, survived almost four years in lay-up, was reactivated, moved to Australia, went through a failed sale and is now entering a new ownership structure built around expectations of a tighter large-AHTS market.
Same vessel. Very different AHTS market.
And its latest sale may be telling us something about the next one.
Stay tuned.
This article was produced by Westhon Media for One Energy News.