McDermott has awarded a charter extension to the Bourbon and Oceanteam-owned construction support vessel (CSV) Southern Ocean for operations offshore India. As a result, the vessel's next charterer Fugro has canceled the subsequent charter agreement for the vessel as it cannot be delivered on the agreed date.

The Southern Ocean vessel was mobilized for the McDermott contract at the east coast of India at the end of last year, and it was supposed to complete the work in the second quarter of this year.

However, as a result of the cyclone hitting the Indian coast in early May, the expected scope of work undertaken by the CSV Southern Ocean for McDermott could not be finalized during the charter period, according to Oceanteam's statement on Wednesday.

The unexpected weather delay has prompted the parties involved to re-think their previous arrangements. Therefore, both the charterer – McDermott – and the vessel owner, in concertation with the next charterer, which is Fugro, have agreed on an extension of the current charter to allow McDermott to complete its scope of work, Oceanteam said.

“All parties involved regret the situation that has arisen, which is beyond any parties' control,” Oceanteam stated.

As a result of the extension of the current vessel charter, the CSV Southern Ocean cannot be delivered on the agreed delivery date for the Fugro charter in Australia, which was announced in April 2019. Under this agreement, the vessel was supposed to undertake a program of IRM work, starting in mid-May 2019.

Therefore, Fugro has canceled the subsequent charter agreement and has found alternatives to service its end-client.

Oceanteam added that parties had been working together to find mutually agreeable financial solutions.

The 2010-built Southern Ocean is a DP2 construction support/flexible product installation vessel used for field support, construction, installation, and IRM.