Borealis Maritime has recruited offshore veteran Steve Brackenridge to build up a commercially operated fleet and reactivate its laid-up vessels.
Brackenridge has been hired as chief executive of new Aurora Offshore, a partnership between Brackenridge's own one-man company and London-based Borealis.
"We are in a development stage at the moment but we are about to take over commercial management on several vessels," he said.
Brackenridge, a Scotsman with experience in the Norwegian offshore business, is a former broker with Westshore and Clarksons Platou.
He comes to Aurora by way of chartering roles at Deep Sea Supply, SolstadFarstad and Viking Supply Ships, where he was chief commercial officer. He left Viking in March and set up his own company, Brackenridge Offshore.
He expects to hire more staff soon for the Kristiansand-based venture but is on his own so far.
Aurora is looking to take on commercial control of a wide range of offshore assets including platform supply vessels, anchor handling tug supply (AHTS) and subsea, and renewables units.
"In general terms, we would be interested in purchases as well but the price would have to be right," he said.
Christoph Toepfer-led Borealis is best known for its fleet of midsize containerships, managed for a variety of fund owners. Its own affiliate — Borealis Finance — recently made headlines with the $233.9m sale of 12 containerships to Global Ship Lease (GSL).
But the company also controls small coated chemical tankers, two panamax bulkers, and nine small to medium PSVs that were acquired in opportunistic transactions along the way.
The PSVs range from 3,000 dwt to 5,500 dwt, some trading and some laid up.
TradeWinds understands the two smallest ships — the 3,000-dwt OOC Panther (built 2011) and 3,100-dwt OOC Tiger (built 2012) — may be set for disposal.
According to Westshore Shipbrokers, two of Borealis' PSVs — the 3,300-dwt World Pearl and World Diamond (both built 2013) — will soon have spent six years of their life laid up in Alesund, Norway.
They are part of a package of vessels that changed hands several times during their layup, most recently when Borealis bought out the fleet of Oystein Stray Spetalen's SD Standard Drilling venture New World Supply in 2018 and 2019.
Offshore brokers commented to TradeWinds that the ships at the smaller end of that range will be especially hard to reactivate, even with a relatively active North Sea market.
But Brackenridge is optimistic that the ships' quality alongside several years of zero world fleet growth in PSVs will work in Aurora's favour.
"Big is beautiful at the moment," he said. "But even though these ships are smaller, they are modern, and their diesel-electric propulsion is a huge advantage."
Brackenridge declined to comment on detailed plans for the offshore fleet Borealis already controls, but he believes all will be in service by the end of this year or early 2022.
"We believe in the offshore oil and gas market, both on the basis that activity will continue, and that this segment has not had any newbuildings for a considerable time and there is not likely to be any soon," he said. "People want to invest in offshore ships for the renewables industry. And laid-up ships are disappearing gradually."
