"So far, our fleet mostly consists of UT designs," says Jostein Sætrenes, Managing Director of Bourbon Offshore Norway. "This will be our first Ulstein designed vessel. We have great expectations of Ulstein’s design, which we believe will help us to land good projects. Groupe Bourbon is a major player in the offshore and supply market, and now the Ulstein Group is getting an opportunity to promote their design within our group," he says. "The newbuild and the delivery time have been adjusted to our wishes," says the director. "It is exciting and nice for us to be able to place an order in the local region of Sunnmøre, Norway, where most of our employees live and work," says Jostein Sætrenes. "We regard ourselves as a locally anchored player with activities in all four corners of the world, owned by a French company. It is very positive that we manage to achieve good, competitive, local solutions that can strengthen the maritime cluster in Sunnmøre. Ulstein Verft has a good reputation and is known as a quality supplier of vessels, and we are confident that the knowledge, tradition and experience in the Ulstein Group, together with our company’s own expertise, will result in a successful project," he emphasises. Source: www.ulsteinverft.com.

Bourbon Topaz to be delivered February 25th 2005.