The United Kingdom has reportedly finalized the sale of the helicopter carrier HMS Ocean to Brazil for less than a third of what it originally spent to build the ship. The Brazilian Navy looks to be the big winner in the deal, which effectively ends the possibility of the Royal Navy having any interim aircraft carrier capability, no matter how limited, until HMS Queen Elizabeth enters operational service. On Jan. 2, 2018, U.K. Defence Journal reported that Brazilian Defense Minister Raul Jungmann had confirmed the purchase in December 2017. Brazil will pay almost $115 million for Ocean, but it is unclear if that cost will include any refit or refurbishment of the ship or if the government in Brasilia will have to come up with the entire amount at once. The United Kingdom still has yet to officially decommission the ship, which it expects to do in 2018, but the first rumors of the sale appeared in March 2017.

The head of the Brazilian Navy, Admiral Eduardo Leal Ferreira, previously described the price tag as “convenient,” Brazilian journalist Roberto Lopes told U.K. Defence Journal. Brazil will send personnel to train on the ship in the United Kingdom prior to its delivery and the first four Brazilian officers will reportedly arrive before the end of January 2018. It is not entirely clear how Brazil plans to integrate the ship into her existing naval forces. In February 2017, the country’s navy finally retired its sole conventional takeoff and landing aircraft carrier, the São Paulo, after five nearly five years of attempts to return it to service.

Ottaky via Wikimedia HMS Ocean moored in Greenwich, London in support of the 2012 Summer Olympics

Ocean would not be able to accommodate the fixed wing aircraft that had flown from that ship, such as the modernized AF1 Skyhawks, though. According to Roberto Lopes, the Brazilian Navy is already planning on re-naming its new ship something other than São Paulo in order to keep that moniker free for a more capable future carrier. Instead, the ex-British ship could become the new Minas Gerais. The last Brazilian ship of that name was an upgraded World War II-era Colossus-class light aircraft carrier that the country had purchased from the United Kingdom in 1956 and which served until São Paulo’s arrival in 2001.

USN The Brazilian aircraft carrier São Paulo, in the foreground, sails with the USS Ronald Reagan in 2004 during a training exercise.