Keppel bags S$300m of marine contracts; Keppel T&T sells stakes in Thai IT firms

KEPPEL Corp said on Wednesday its unit Keppel Offshore & Marine (Keppel O&M) has secured new marine contracts with a combined value of S$300 million.

Keppel O&M's subsidiary Keppel Singmarine has been engaged by Shturman Koshelev LLC to design and construct an ice-class LNG bunker vessel by the fourth quarter of 2020. The vessel will be chartered to Gazpromneft Marine Bunker Ltd for operations in the Baltic Sea.

Keppel O&M said it has delivered 11 ice-class vessels to-date and is building South-east Asia's first LNG bunkering vessel.

In addition, Keppel Shipyard has been entrusted with fabricating a new aft hull for a floating production storage and offloading vessel (FPSO) by a global operator of floating production vessels. Work on the FPSO will begin in the first quarter of next year, with delivery expected by end 2020.

Keppel Shipyard has also bagged 65 exhaust gas scrubber retrofit projects involving project management, integration design engineering, installation and retrofitting, as well as testing and commissioning works.

The above contracts are not expected to have a material impact on the net tangible assets or earnings per share of Keppel Corporation for the current financial year.

Separately on Wednesday, Keppel Telecommunications & Transportation (Keppel T&T) said it is divesting entire stakes in Thailand-based information and technology services companies Advanced Research Group Co (ARG) and Anew Corporation Limited for a total of 211.2 million baht (about S$8.8 million), to a buyer named Min Intanate.

As part of the deal, Keppel T&T's subsidiary Keppel Communications will also acquire a 4 per cent stake in Business Online Public Company Limited, a business information service provider listed on the Thailand Stock Exchange, from ARG for 66.9 million baht.

Keppel Communications' current 29.20 per cent interest in Business Online Public Company Limited - held 9.19 per cent indirectly through ARG and 20.01 per cent indirectly through Keppel Communications - will decrease to 24.01 per cent after the transactions.

The group expects to recognise a net gain of about S$5.2 million in its profit and loss account from the transactions.