May 22 - Dockwise Shipping has secured 11 near and longer term contracts for the transportation of jack-up drilling rigs, semi submersible rigs, as well as port and marine infrastructure, with a total revenue of around USD63 million.

In association with industry partners, Dockwise Shipping will transport the jack up drilling rigs COSL Craft, Shelf Explorer, Seajacks Leviathan and Gorilla III to their new assignments in China, Sakhalin, Netherlands and Canada respectively.

The company has also been contracted to transport four cranes, dredging equipment, a jack up working platform and an accommodation barge to USA, Equatorial Guinea, Egypt and Angola respectively.

All the contracts will be undertaken in Q2, Q3 and Q4 this year.

In the second half of 2009, Dockwise will also transport a semi submersible drilling rig to Brazil.

Longer term, the company has been contracted to transport semi-submersible rig La Muralla to Mexico in 2010.

André Goedée, Chief Executive, Dockwise Ltd., said: "The market for drilling rig transportation continues to show mobility of rig equipment. With ongoing shortening of lead times to execution Dockwise is able to provide its clients maximum flexibility of its 20 vessel fleet. For the current year we rely on our core heavy marine transport activities. It is encouraging to see that also contracts for the longer term are added to our backlog, underpinning the strategic choices we made."