October 14 - Just one day after it announced the filing of a waiver request on a single covenant with its lender syndicate, which seeks consent for a temporary relaxation of the leverage ratio (net debt over EBITDA) for the period March 2012 until Septemb

Directly following the transportation of the Jack & St. Malo platform to the Gulf of Mexico in 2013, Dockwise Vanguard will return to Korea to load and transport the Goliat floating, production, storage and offloading vessel [FPSO] to northern Norway.

The company claims that the investment decision for the construction of Dockwise Vanguard has facilitated technical optimisation of the production platform, whereby the change offers benefits to the Goliat project with respect to transit time and transportation flexibility. The financial result from this contract and the second contract confirms the earlier made financial prognosis for the vessel in its first year of operation. Aiming at further assignments for this period Dockwise continues to strive for enhanced revenues compared to its initial plan.

The Goliat FPSO will be operated by Eni for oil production of the Goliat field located offshore Northern Norway in sub-arctic conditions. The platform is designed as a fully integrated and enclosed winterised floating production platform (FPSO).

The company says that Dockwise Vanguard adds unique capacity and new flexibility to the Dockwise fleet which will be of particular value for clients with the most challenging assignments.

Dockwise says that the waiver mentioned above is part of a comprehensive package of measures to ensure that, under current market circumstances, it remains within its leverage ratio as agreed with the lender syndicate. A company statement adds: "The waiver request serves contingency planning purposes and would provide additional headroom in extraordinary market circumstances."