SINGAPORE : Keppel Shipyard has secured three new contracts worth S$110 million despite a global downturn in the transportation industry.

Under the contracts, it will undertake the upgrading, modification and conversion of three vessels.

The first deal comes from Bumi Armada, Malaysia's biggest owner of offshore support vessels.

The project entails the upgrading and conversion of a tanker into a floating production storage and offloading facility (FPSO).

It will have a storage capacity of one million barrels of oil and be able to process 40,000 barrels of oil per day when the project is completed in the first half of 2009.

The second contract is for the jumboisation of a dredger from Boskalis Westminister Shipping of the Netherlands.

The third is also for the upgrading and modification of an FPSO for the Tupi field in Brazil. The contract comes from BW Offshore, one of the world's largest FPSO contractors and a market leader in the field.

Keppel Shipyard is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Keppel Corporation.

The 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. - CNA/ms