Yeah, but the build price for Aiviq is paid off now. As long as crewing costs, supplies, and repairs are covered there’s a profit for a boat that would otherwise just be sitting and rusting.
That and if they haven’t changed things from what they said in the vacancy notice, they aren’t crew changing until it gets back to the US.
The number thrown around when congressman Hunter was pushing for the CG to charter Aiviq back in 2016 was the equivalent of $60k/day bareboat and $90k/day crewed. Where he derived that from I don’t presume to know.
whatever the actual charter rate is, I am certain it ain’t $90k/day…even though Gary got his investment back from Shell and a ship more or less for free, he would not put it out there to work unless it makes him some real money. In any event, at a low end, the charter would be something like a $35M tab for Australia to pick up going up to close to $50M. Seriously, does any one here thing Gary would send the AIVIQ all that way for less? This is Gary Chouest we are discussing here…
Apologies to @anchorman who I also failed to credit for his intel on Aiviq, in my previous post, in relation to his info on Aiviq supporting Nuyina this season.
In Au, Government tenders are published on line so that other tenderer, and us mere plebs, can see the awarded $. Not easy to navigate to, or locate, or see other than minimal data, but unless they are secret squirrel, they can be found. However, there is no detail as to contract inclusions or exclusions, just when published, and whom awarded to, and the amount, and a generic what for. And there could be caveats or other shit like next year contingency allowances or standby availability tucked away in all the contractual documentation that we have no access to.
Now, If I have correctly interrupted what I’ve downloaded off the AusTender intergoggle site, and if my maths are correct …
I’m talking on charter days, ex Hobart, and have excluded repositioning. Naturally they all have repositioning fees of some kind to hit 42 deg S anyways. So lets talk time on the job.
RSV Nuyina is costed at AUD $1.9 Billion, over 30 years, including operational costs and the AUD $529 million build cost. Serco have the Design, Build, Operation and Maintenance contract, and likely have a winner there. Mr Gary probably wishes he put his hat in the ring for that one. Oh well, better luck next time round.
We all know that the delayed delivery of the Nuyina meant that she was not available last season as planned, nor for the full season this year, and some contingency was needed, and the Aurora was out of Survey. I mean, how much steel do you really need left on your hull after 30 years of toil, bashing hard white solid shit with the fluffy topping adding to the drag. (Disclaimer- She was a great boat and served us bloody well. I’ve very fond memories of my time onboard) But I digress.
For the previous shipping season, 20/21, MPV Everest was chartered through Maritime Construction Services BV, and on charter for 135 days, with the listed contract sum of AUD $11,511,576.73, which is AUD $85,270.94 a day. Nice work. Not sure who paid for the fire damages… They are still probably still punching on over that one. Maybe she wasn’t available this season, maybe something else, maybe not…
This season, 21/22, the Happy Dragon is slated for Casey resupply & Traverse equipment delivery, as well as Davis Dry Cargo delivery, over two voyages. She is currently off Casey Station in some weather, after making some pax txfers to/from the station.
The nominated on hire period is 102 days and the listed contract value nominated is AUD $5,520,916.00. That’s AUD $54,126.63 a day for BigLift Shipping B.V.
Now that’s a bargain.
Just for interest, and building the suspense for @c.captain, this years station fuel resupply requirement of SAB (Special Antarctic Blend) a light diesel like fuel with additives to make it more anti freeze with a lower waxing point, for the stations power houses and vehicles being-
One Sub Antarctic station
Three Antarctic stations
is valued at AUD $3,493,800.00. Standard Diesel fuel in downtown Hobart is around AUD 1.77 per litre.
And whilst the Nuyina has “officially” departed on her maiden cruise South, she has dicking about in view of land calibrating Scientific gear & performing fuel deployment testing & testing her DP. She has bee delayed due to having the “ships alarm and monitoring system issues rectified”. And rumor has it one of her main RR DG sets has a mechanical issue as well. But I digress once more, sorry, …
And, as for the contract published on 11-Nov-21, to Offshore Service Vessels, L.L.C., yep, you know who that is, for Ice-breaking Supplementary vessel - 2021/22 Season , to perform the Davis Station Refuel and Contingency (additional ice breaking capacity) which is slated for a whopping (tongue in cheek) 81 days on charter, over 2 whole voyages, (Drum roll please @c.captain) the nominated contract sum is, for the good ship Aiviq, in AUD, is
$26,554,050.00
F ME !!!
Get ur bloody abacus out to confirm that that equates to AUD $327,827.78 bananas a day in a fair comparison to Happy Dragon & MPV Everest daily charter.
WTF !!!
Did we actually buy the friggin’ thing by mistake ???
Someone help me, I’m screaming on the inside here 
I was fully with NH_Domer et all before I did my homework. I was thinking @c.captain was having a rant up on his soap box. But noooooooooooooooooooo he sure weren’t !!
Mr Gary sure bent us over a barrel and walked away smiling.
Can one of you locals make sure the IRS knows about this income stream, at least he can part with some taxes to your Fed, as heavens knows my taxes have been fleeced & pillaged like hell.
I think you might need to sharpen your abacus. $26,554,050 AUD is $19,205,349 USD (which is the currency I’m pretty sure this previous discussion was in). While you’re welcome to use an arbitrary number of days for your calculation, the actual contract period in the Contract Notice for Aiviq is Sept 15, 2021 to March 31, 2022, which is 198 days.
In purely Contract Total / Contract Days that’s a day-rate of $97k USD. As you mentioned there are no other contract details as it’s listed as “confidential”, so there is no way of knowing whether this total includes mobilization or demobilization. Every contract I’ve worked included mob and de-mob, and I can’t imagine anyone would send a ship around the world without including that mob cost, which if included here would reduce that day-rate even more.
198 days would appear to include mobilization and de-mobilization.
So CCaptain has done it again. He proposed an outlandish estimate of $200,000 a day. If you use 81 working days on the job, that is not far off.
If you use 198 days, it’s $91,000 a day, but includes a lot of mobilization and demobilization.
Getting this contract is a huge win for Chouest. My hat is off to their commercial manager.
Hopefully, AIVIQ will really prove herself as a good vessel on this job. Which will redeem AIVIQ and turn a dead, low value asset into a very much alive, high value asset.
If this goes well, as I hope it will, AIVIQ very seriously needs a new name. How about ENDURANCE?
That is the total cost of the contract for Australian Antarctic Division.
Whether it is paid as day rate for the entire period, or day rate while active + mob/de-mob is immaterial.
Do we know if the charter is on Supply Time terms, (maybe with Special Tasks Annex) or some other standard BIMCO contract?
In order to get the required permits to work in Shell’s Arctic drilling progect the Aiviq was equipped with exhaust treatment systems. I wonder if that made her attractive to the Australian government to charter.
So Gary Chouest is not the greedy bastard I had expected him to be and let the AIVIQ go at a much lower dayrate than I figured he would have but there might well be other motivations such as getting to prove the vessel in polar conditions with future work for her in mind or an outright sale to some party. I have to wonder now when the season and charter end if he will bring the ship back to Tampa or keep her closer to where more work might be found for her?
The next season where she may find work would be in the Arctic during the northern summer and early autumn.
Perhaps but nobody has needed the ship up north in a decade so suddenly who will need it now especially since there isn’t much ice left during the arctic summer season?
I wonder how many of the crew are Americans? I know the master must be and maybe the Chief, but who else?
I think all the officers, and a large percentage of the ratings must be Americans.
They are not working in a foreign country’s OCS. Australia has a cabotage law, but I don’t see how it would apply to working in the Antarctic.
The Australian government seems to be very good at wasting money.
In fact lots of governments seem to wast vast resources doing ‘research’ in Antarctica.
Y is the Aiviq blue and white? Just thinking its quite odd, most polar vessels seem to not blend in with water and ice. Especially with its bad reputation, and years of sitting around to repaint it, dont they want people to see it in an emergency?
I believe it has to do with wildlife, blue doesn’t frighten the whales as much as bright colors, least that was told to us years ago by the mammal watchers we had on our boat
That is exactly why the Aiviq got those colors.
They want to blend in with the environment, just like the Royal Malaysian Navy:
Because it’s better to have it making a little money working than sitting at the dock costing him money.
One would have to see the actual contract to determine if this was a good deal for either side. It is possible there were mob, demob fees and of course it is possible the government agreed to pay for salaries, provisions etc. But I would hazard a guess that Chouest doesn’t need the money and never enters an business deal just to keep people employed. So I wouldn’t worry, unless I was an Australian taxpayer.
