Teekay shuttle tanker trio complete

The third and final shuttle tanker built especially to serve the east coast of Canada has been delivered. Dorset Spirit will join Beothuk Spirit and Norse Spirit on a shuttle run between Newfoundland and the offshore oil fields in the Atlantic (see VesselsValue activity heatmap below).

According to Teekay, these vessels are purpose-built to serve in the harsh environment on oil fields offshore the east coast of Canada where they are the sole provider of shuttle tanker services to a group of nine oil companies.

In 2015, Teekay Offshore Partners LP announced it had entered into a new long-term shuttle contract with Canada Hibernia Holding Corporation, Chevron Canada, ExxonMobil Canada, Husky Energy, Mosbacher Operating Ltd, Murphy Oil, Nalcor Energy, Statoil, and Suncor Energy. Teekay Offshore was to provide shuttle tankers services for loading crude at Hibernia, Terra Nova, White Rose and Hebron offshore oil fields located in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador.

These 15-year contracts, plus extension options, were initially serviced by one of Teekay Offshore’s existing shuttle tankers, Navion Hispania, and two to three third party-owned shuttle tankers operating in east coast Canada.

In 2015, Teekay Offshore entered into shipbuilding contracts to construct three Suezmax-size, DP2 shuttle tanker newbuildings with Samsung shipyard for approximately US$365M. The delivery of Dorset Spirit is the final vessel in the trio.

Teekay noted that the Heritage-class project has been completed without any lost time incidents equating to an impressive total of approximately 2.6M man hours.