The Royal Navy of Oman’s (RNO) second Corvette (Al-Rahmani) was commissioned on Sunday morning at Portsmouth Naval Base in the UK. It is the second corvette out of three designed and built by defence expert BAE Systems for the RNO.

The commissioning ceremony was held under the auspices of Sayyed Badir bin Saud bin Harib Al-Busaidi the Minister Responsible Defence Affairs in Oman, said a statement from BAE Sytems.

The ceremony was attended by Lord Astor, the under secretary of State for Defence in the UK and Rear Admiral Abdullah bin Khamis bin Abdullah Al-Raisi, commander of the Royal Navy of Oman (CRNO) in addition to a number of VIPs and representatives of the RNO and the UK Royal Navy.

This event reflects the strategic importance given to these state-of-the-art corvettes by the Sultanate of Oman and UK at the time in which BAE Systems is seeking to boost its exports worldwide.

The commissioning of Al-Rahmani comes under the contract (Khareef) signed by the two sides in 2007 in light of which BAE Systems has to design and build three 99 metre corvettes.

The ships have the capacity to serve for prolonged periods overseas and are designed to reinforce the RNO capabilities and support the Naval Force in the protection of the international waters and the surveillance of EEZ.

Alan Johnston, managing director of BAE Systems’ Surface Ships division, said: 'We have been building ships for the RNO for over 30 years and are proud of the close working relationship we have developed, which is helping us to deliver the extremely sophisticated naval capability to the Royal Navy of Oman that you see here today.'

“Today’s event reflects the significant progress on this programme and reinforces our position as a leader in the global market to design, build and support warships for navies around the world,” he added.

The first ship (Al-Shamikh) was commissioned in July 2009 and will set sail for its first sea trials later this year.-TradeArabia News Service