CREW boat building is often forgotten amid the other more exciting and high-value segments of the offshore and marine industry but it is nonetheless a crucial and fast growing area.
Shipbuilder Strategic Marine is so confident of the market that it is building eight of these boats on a speculative basis without securing a buyer for them first. Six 40-metre boats will be built at its Tuas yard and two 52-metre crew boats will be built at its new Mexican yard in the city of Mazatlan.
The move is expected to boost Strategic Marine's revenues by over US$40 million. The company already has over US$300 million worth of orders on its books.
The Western Australia- based shipbuilder was one of the first builders of aluminium workboats in Australia and has yards in Singapore, Vietnam and Mexico, in addition to its original Australian yard.
Crew boats are generally used for transporting personnel and cargo to and from offshore installations not far from the coast.
Unlike offshore supply vessels, crew boats are designed for speed more than manoeuvrability, cargo capacity and station-keeping capability.
Strategic Marine director Ron Anderson said the company had decided to build 'on spec' or on a speculative basis because, with its four shipyards fully operational in some of the most active oil-and-gas industry areas in the world, it had the added capacity to meet buoyant global demand from the offshore market.
'Offshore vessels come third in terms of vessels on order globally, behind tankers and cargo ships, making up about 15 per cent of the international shipbuilding industry's business,' said Mr Anderson.
This confidence has paid off, with two of the six 40-metre boats already ordered by Western Australian marine services company Samson Maritime in a contract worth US$9.8 million.
'We have built up the experience and technical skills to undertake continuous production of standard hull forms for various types of vessels,' Mr Anderson said.
'The rationale for this approach is shorter lead times for delivery, standard vessel designs that can be serviced economically, and lower overall costs to the purchaser due to the economies of scale we are able to achieve,' he said.
Mr Anderson said Strategic Marine's Singapore yard had specialised in building crew boats since opening in 2005, with orders for 22 of these types of vessel since then. Among its clients is Malaysian customer Syarikat Borcos Shipping, for which it is building nine 40-metre offshore utility vessels.
The Singapore yard is also expected to deliver three 22.1-metre crew boats to Dutch client SMIT International by the end of this year, as well as four 31-metre crew boats to Indonesia's Baruna Raya Logistics early next year.