Germany's United Offshore Support (UOS) has sold an anchor-handling tug supply (AHTS) ship into Iceland through a tender.
The country's coastguard has entered into a binding agreement with the company to acquire the large 16,315-bhp GH Endurance (built 2010).
Norwegian broker Seabrokers said a tender process was conducted earlier in the year, with five bids received.
Two of those offers were deemed valid, with the lower bid from Iceland eventually accepted at ISK 1.7bn ($13m).
The GH Endurance will be renamed Freyja and repurposed for a role as an offshore patrol vessel.
UOS bought the ship as ER Vittoria for an undisclosed price from Nordcapital Investment in 2018.
The deal is one of a handful that has seen some oil and gas ships repurposed for new sectors in recent weeks.
South African owners takes AHTS for salvage work
Seabrokers reported that African Marine Solutions (AMSOL) has acquired the super-large 18,767-bhp AHTS ENA Frontier (built 2013) from Singapore's Eastern Navigation as part of its fleet-renewal strategy.
The ship has been relocated and reflagged from Singapore to South Africa and renamed Umkhuseli.
The sales price is reported as $8.5m.
VesselsValue notes the unit was sold out of the oil and gas sector for salvage work, where its high-speed capabilities will prove useful.
Built to the VS4616 design, the Umkhuseli was constructed at Wuchang Shipyard in China for Greek owner Gregory Callimanopulos' Toisa group, which later went bankrupt.
The AHTS was known as Toisa Envoy, operating for Toisa's Sealion Shipping, and was acquired at auction in 2018 by Eastern Navigation for $6m.
Brokers also logged the disposal of French owner Bourbon Offshore's 13,410-bhp AHTS Bourbon Orca (built 2006) to Hays Ships of the UK for an unreported price.
The ship has already been relocated from Norway to Teesside in the UK and renamed Kommandor Orca.
Bourbon ship gains new lease of life
Prior to the sale, the AHTS had been laid up since mid-2020.
The vessel had primarily worked in the North Sea and Central America.
The Bourbon Orca was the first offshore vessel to be built with Ulstein Verft's revolutionary X-Bow hull.
Hays Ships has one other offshore unit, a platform supply vessel built in 1999.
Meanwhile, Vietnam's Hai Duong Petroleum & Marine Corp has acquired a pair of AHTS vessels from MMA Offshore of Australia.
The laid up 5,150-bhp Mermaid Vantage 209 and Mermaid Voyager (both built 2009) have been renamed as the Hai Duong 55 and Hai Duong 56 respectively.
VesselsValue reports the price as $1.15m each.
The pair have both spent their entire time in service working in either South East Asia or Australia.
The valuation platform also records the small laid-up 4,800-bhp anchor-handling tug Chambon Alize (built 2012) as being offloaded for $3.71m to newcomer TSM Windcat in France — its only ship.
The seller was compatriot Compagnie Maritime Chambon, which is now listed with no offshore vessels.
