Offshore staff

SINGAPORE -- Jurong Shipyard is finalizing joint venture terms and conditions with WTorre Empreendimentos Imobiliários SA (WTorre) for a shipyard to serve West Africa and Brazil oil and gas sectors. The yard will be in Brazil.

Wong Weng Sun, president of Jurong's parent group, SembCorp Marine, says the yard is being built in Rio Grade in southern Brazil by São Paulo-based WTorre.

Details will be announced once the partnership is finalized, Wong said.

The 554-sq m (5,963-sq-ft) facility is designed to have a 133 m x 350 m (436 ft x 1,148 ft) graving dock, a 600-metric-ton (661.4-ton) gantry crane, and ancillary fabrication facilities for building semisubmersibles, FPSO conversions and newbuilds, and constructing topside modules.

Petrobras has committed a 10-year service lease at the yard when it is completed in June 2008.

WTorre began building the yard in Nov. 2006.

Jurong, which has undertaken a number of projects for Petrobras, has been a leading partner with Brazil's Synergy Group in the Mauá Jurong shipyard at Niteroi in the state of Rio de Janeiro since 2001.

10/3/2007