Once-troubled subsea construction company Solstad Offshore is building up new work.
Hagusend-based Solstad has won a new contract for the 178-loa Normand Maximus (built 2016), the largest vessel in the Solstad fleet, it announced on Thursday.
The deal will last for one year and keep the ship occupied until December 2026.
The ship had been troublesome for the Norwegian offshore outfit, having previously been fixed to Italian oilfield services company Saipem for eight years on a deal that began in 2016.
Saipem cancelled the contract in 2020, potentially forcing Solstad Offshore to buy the ships from Maximus Ltd for $122m.
Instead, in May 2022, AMSC stepped in to buy the ship for $157m from Maximus Ltd, an outfit Solstad Offshore had a 25% stake in, before leasing it back to another Solstad Offshore-linked company.
Last year, when Kjell Inge Rokke took a controlling stake in the offshore vessel owner after providing a NOK 13.2bn ($1.2bn) refinancing lifeline, AMSC sold the Normand Maximus back to Solstad Offshore in exchange for NOK 1bn in equity.
Part of the financing needs included a NOK 1.8bn claim stemming from the charter dispute.
Late last year, Solstad Offshore received a letter of intent from an undisclosed charterer to employ the vessel from the first quarter of 2024.
According to AIS data, the ship left the Mediterranean Sea in May and made a brief stop in the Netherlands before proceeding south to Brazil.
The latest charterer was similarly unnamed.
Solstad has increasingly looked toward Brazil to boost its business.
In the second quarter, chief executive Lars Peder Solstad said the company had 15 vessels working in Brazil and in October, it announced a trio of deals worth $53m there.
