Shipowner Altera Infrastructure has sealed a sale of its anchor-handling tug company ALP Maritime Group as it refocuses on its core markets.
The UK-based floating production, storage and offloading unit and shuttle tanker group did not reveal the buyer, but the statement confirmed TradeWinds’ report from last month that the eight super-large ships were changing hands.
Filings from Brazil’s Administrative Council for Economic Defence (CADE) showed the buyer is giant Dutch contractor and shipowner Boskalis.
“The sale of this world-class fleet … also offers ALP further development opportunities under new and experienced ownership,” Altera said.
VesselsValue assesses the AHTs as worth $283m combined, up from $276m in less than two weeks.
Ingvild Saether, Altera’s chief executive, said: “The divestment of our towage segment is aligned with Altera’s strategy to own and operate critical infrastructure in the offshore energy sector and will allow us to focus more on our stable medium and long-term contracts for our remaining assets.”
The deal will also enable the group “to pursue exciting new opportunities in our developing [carbon capture and storage] business, in particular following award of our first offshore carbon storage licence in the Norwegian sector”, she added.
Paul Mulder, CEO of ALP, thanked Altera for its support over the years.
“Together we have grown ALP to become the market leader in its field, performing over 350 projects while being under the umbrella of Altera. We are sure that these vessels and the crew sailing them will make the next owners as proud as they have made us,” he said.
CADE cleared the deal in February, saying the companies have a low market share in the AHT and offshore support vessel sectors.
Boskalis, ALP and Altera did not comment last month.
Powerful units
The ALP fleet includes the 218-bp ALP Forward (built 2008), 219-bp ALP Winger (built 2007), 285-bp ALP Guard (built 2009) and 297-bp ALP Centre (built 2010).
Then there are the ships with bollard pulls of more than 300 tonnes: the 305-bp ALP Defender and 303-bp ALP Sweeper (both built 2017), 302-bp ALP Keeper (built 2018) and 309-bp ALP Striker (built 2016).
Half were ordered by ALP in 2014, while half were acquired from Germany’s Harms Bergung in 2015.
Two other ALP vessels were sold to Multraship in 2022.
They are ideal for towing and salvage work worldwide.
Brookfield Business Partners-controlled Altera, the former Teekay Offshore, will be left with six floating production or storage ships, plus the 17 tankers owned by subsidiary Altera Shuttle Tankers.
ALP was founded in 2010.
Boskalis was delisted in Amsterdam in 2022 following a $2.3bn takeover deal by the group’s biggest shareholder, Monaco investment fund HAL Holding.
The group controls nearly 190 ships and is best known for its dredgers and tugs.
Boskalis also has a big fleet of AHT supply units, platform supply vessels, cable layers, research ships and semi-submersible heavylift vessels.
