Norway's Vard to build hulls of 3 coast guard vessels in Romanian shipyard

Vard Tulcea employs 3,000 and is located on the right bank of the Danube river, upstream of Tulcea.

The overall value of Vard's contract with NDMA for the construction of the three vessels exceeds 5.0 billion Norwegian crowns ($616 million/528 million euro), Vard said in a statement on Tuesday.

The purpose of the new series of coast guard vessels is to replace the Nordkappclass coast guard vessels, Vard said. The new tailor-made vessels are developed for worldwide operations in all weather and sea conditions, both inshore and offshore. With a length of 136 meters and a beam of 22 meters, the vessels feature strong ocean-going capacities for long-distance transits, search-and-rescue operations, surveillance, and oil recovery.

Deliveries of the three vessels are scheduled from Vard Langsten in Norway in the first quarter of 2022, first quarter of 2023 and in the first three months of 2024, respectively.

Vard is one of the major global designers and shipbuilders of specialised vessels. Headquartered in Norway and with approximately 9,000 employees, it operates nine strategically located shipbuilding facilities, including five in Norway, two in Romania, one in Brazil and one in Vietnam.

In April, Vard said that it would build the hull of a 170 million euro ($206 million) cable laying vessel for Italy's Prysmian Group in its Tulcea shipyard.

NDMA is an agency directly subordinate to the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Defence. Its main task is to continuously develop and modernize the Norwegian Armed forces.

(1NOK= 0.1056 euro)