Farstad Shipping has confirmed a swoop for a pair of platform supply vessels at STX OSV.

The Oslo-listed owner has ordered the duo to service the long-term charter deals with Norwegian oil giant Statoil announced last week.

Farstad will shell out NOK 700m for the 5,600-dwt ships for delivery in the second and third quarters of 2014.

Singapore-listed STX OSV has a history with Farstad and was tipped to win the order after the Norwegian company revealed the Statoil charters which run for six years firm with options for three more.

One of the hulls will be built in Romania with outfitting to take place at STX OSV Langsten in Norway while the other vessel will be built at the company’s yard in Vietnam.

These are the third and fourth newbuilding orders for STX OSV in the space of a few days after Troms Offshore and a joint venture of Solstad and HitecVision inked one each at the tail-end of last week.

Farstad’s new charter deals were just two of the seven long-term contracts handed out by Statoil last week.

Atlantic Offshore, Simon Mokster, Remoy Shipping and Troms Offshore also bagged a share of the spoils which are worth nearly $600m in total.
 
Atlantic Offshore confirmed the contracts with Statoil yesterday but has yet to reveal where it intends to place the newbuilding order.