Bibby Offshore has secured a £53mn (US$85mn) loan from Standard Chartered which it will use to purchase a diving support vessel (DSV).

The subsea saturation diving and remotely operated underwater vehicle construction contracting arm of Bibby Line Group will also use the loan to refinance part of its existing DSV fleet.

The deal is the second shipping finance transaction Standard Chartered has conducted with Bibby Offshore: in 2010, the bank provided the funds for the purchase of the DSV Bibby Sapphire.

Despite a warning from ABN Amro earlier this year that European banks’ capacity for debt shipping finance may fall due to Basel III’s capital-holding requirements, Nigel Anton, head of shipping finance at Standard Chartered, says the deal demonstrates the bank’s “commitment to the shipping sector as a whole”.