Within days of sister company Heerema Fabrication Group handing over the largest offshore deck ever built in the Netherlands, Heerema Marine Contractors was announcing plans to diversify its installation fleet with a multirole monohull vessel. Over the next 12 pages, David Morgan reviews this and other current talking points among stalwarts of the Dutch offshore industry.
Confirming the signing of a letter of intent with Korea's Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) on 19 July, Heerema Marine Contractors (HMC) said building its new deepwater construction vessel represented an investment of $600-700 million.
HMC revolutionised offshore installation practice back in the late 1970s when making the quantum leap from ship-shape crane vessels to semisubmersible crane barges (OE June 1977) and as recently as two years ago was making plans for another giant semi, later cancelled. Speed and flexibility provided the rationale for selecting a monohull this time. A key attribute of the newbuild will be its transit speed (14 knots) and the vessel will have the capability to execute complex deepwater infrastructure and ultradeep pipeline projects as well as having sufficient lifting capacity to handle fixed platform installation in shallower waters.
HMC said the new vessel would complement its existing fleet, ‘providing a unique fleet composition' that would allow the company to continue offering ‘unrivalled services to the offshore oil and gas industry on a worldwide basis'. DSME has been tasked with the design, engineering, procurement, construction, installation, commissioning and testing of the vessel. Huisman will be responsible for its cranes, tower and reels.
Tests and trials of the DP3 monohull are scheduled for completion by mid-2013. HMC's new chief executive Jan Pieter Klaver said the construction vessel would reinforce his company's ‘unique position' in the deepwater pipelay market. ‘We are confident that with DSME and Huisman we found reliable partners who can build a key asset that will assist us in expanding further into more ultra-deep and complex SURF projects globally.'
The new 210m long self-propelled vessel will be fitted with a pipelay tower for J-lay (tension capacity: 2000t) and reeling. Its crane will have a revolving lift capacity of 4000t and its deepwater lowering equipment will be rated to 3500m water depth, compatible with the company's Balder semi. Maximum pipe payload will be 4500t and HMC says the hull configuration has been specially designed with fast transit speed and optimum motion characteristics while operational in mind. The deckhouse will have accommodation for 289 people.
Dutch master
Meanwhile, early in the morning of 13 July the barge carrying BP Norge's 11,000t Valhall Re-development integrated production and hotel facility deck started its journey from the Heerema Fabrication Group's (HFG) Zwijndrecht yard to location in the Valhall field offshore Norway. Sailaway of the new platform's 350t flare boom and bridges, plus a 2000t weather deck module also fabricated at Zwijndrecht under separate contract, took place a few days later.
Measuring 100m x 47m x 50m, the Valhall main deck is the biggest ever tackled by a Dutch fabricator and is described by Heerema Zwijndrecht project manager Ronald Wiebes as a ‘masterpiece'. Thanking client BP Norge for its co-operation, assistance and trust over the course of a fabrication and integration contract awarded back in March 2007, Wiebes added that the yard had produced ‘a high-quality platform which should last for at least 40 years in the harsh North Sea environment'.
Tino Vinkesteijn, managing director of HFG's two Dutch yards, said delivering such a challenging project in time was a major accomplishment, adding that it had created substantial employment – more than 2,500,000 manhours – for the Zwijndrecht yard and subsequent supply chain (OE May). Thanking HFG for its ‘commitment and effort to achieve a high standard of completion', BP's topsides project manager Chris Ruthven described the Valhall Re-development as ‘a huge undertaking', adding that it is ‘a complex project designed for 40 years and built to high specifications'. OE