Viking Life-Saving Equipment, the market leader in marine and fire safety equipment, is on a winning streak with its innovative Shipowner Agreement servicing contracts being snapped up by shipowners in a series of increasingly large, global deals.

The latest in line – and one of the largest of its kind – is the signing of a liferaft exchange contract with Stolt Tankers BV worldwide. With a global fleet of more than 70 deep sea parcel tankers, and more than 80 coastal tankers and inland tankers, Stolt Tankers operates one of the most technically advanced tanker fleets in the world.

Viking maintains a worldwide exchange pool for liferaft servicing at Viking stations in 42 strategic ports across the globe. Stolt Tankers vessels will receive Viking liferafts, which will simply be exchanged as their certificates expire.

Stolt Tankers Procurement Management Team, believes the new contract offers many advantages for their company.

“Having a single point of contact for Stolt Tankers for all its liferaft management will save us a lot of time and reduce the number of interventions alongside the vessel. At the same time, the transparency and fixed cost basis of the Shipowner Agreements make it much easier for us to predict our servicing costs over the next decade. And in this business, predictability can be worth gold.”

The choice of VIKING as supplier of the contract was influenced by the company’s wide range of options within the agreement, and by the quality of advice provided by Viking’s safety experts.

“We feel very comfortable with the way VIKING has addressed our servicing requirements,” says Stolt Tankers Procurement Team. “They have been in the marine safety business for fifty-odd years, so they were able to demonstrate both the experience and the flexibility we were looking for.”

“We are delighted to add another blue-chip company to our successful exchange concept,” says Henk van der Drift, Vice President for South West Europe. “Long-term contracts like this are made possible by a high level of trust between the parties, and by the flexibility that is built into Shipowner Agreements to enable changes during the contract period. It becomes an easy, convenient choice for far-sighted shipowners like Stolt.”