Malaysia's offshore vessel provider Alam Maritim has won a new work order from Petronas for the supply of an anchor handling tug supply vessel.
While Alam announced the contract award on Thursday, the charter started on February 11, 2020.
Alam said the contract term was up to 460 days from the start date. The value of the contract is 24,8 million Malaysian ringgit ($5,6 million).
The offshore vessel owner did not say which vessel has been chartered for the contract, nor where it will be deployed.
According to data on its website, Alam Maritim owns 20 AHTS Vessels, used to handle anchors for offshore drilling rigs, tow them to location, and anchor them up.
Norwegian energy intelligence company Rystad Energy has earlier this weak painted a bleak picture for the drilling rig market outlook in South East Asia but has also said that Malaysia's Petronas will have a large role in where the market goes.
Citing the cuts in budgets made by oil companies on the back of the Covid-19 pandemic and the Saudi-Russia price war that has sent the oil prices down to historic lows, Rystad said that the rig market that was set for growth was going to decline.
"E&Ps in Southeast Asia have been very cautious by locking in rigs on long term contacts, making it unlikely that options will be exercised. We see that if no new contracts are signed and no options are exercised for the remainder of 2020, utilization will drop by 54% in the region from March to December. This translates to an 18% year-on-year drop from 2019 levels," Rystad said Tuesday.
Of the options in the regional market for 2020, 40% are for work with Petronas, Rystad said, adding that, therefore, Southeast Asia's rig market development in 2020 "will be quite dependent on the volume of options that Petronas decides to exercise."