Offshore wind farm installation company Swire Blue Ocean has awarded Blue Water Shipping a contract to transport new crane boom for its Pacific Osprey jack-up unit.
Blue Water Shipping will transport Pacific Osprey’s new crane boom from NOV’s manufacturing yard to Denmark aboard SAL’s M/V Wiebke.
The crane boom was loaded onboard the M/V Wiebke on January 21, and left the yard on January 22. According to Marine Traffic, the Wiebke vessel is currently sailing past Taiwan, having left Penglai, China two days ago.
The vessel is expected to reach Denmark around March 1, and installation onboard Pacific Osprey will begin once it has been delivered. Swire Blue Ocean expects Pacific Osprey to be back in service by 1 May 2020.
Kim Tribler, Head of Marine Operations, Swire Blue Ocean said: "This is an important milestone for Swire Blue Ocean. The transportation of the crane boom to Denmark rewards months of hard work spent developing a new crane boom design with capacity for future wind turbines. We have all been looking forward to this moment and are very excited about what is coming soon.”
Pacific Osprey is a 2012-built, self-elevating Windfarm Installation Vessel, originally fitted with a 1,200 MT main crane @ 31 m radius – 97 m hook height above deck – targeted for both foundation and wind turbine generator (WTG) installations.
The unit will have the following characteristics following the upgrade
1,200 MT main crane @ 31 m radius – 132 m hook height above deck
700 MT @ 50 m radius – 125 m hook height above deck
115 m boom length – Approx. 30 m gain in main hook height
According to Swire Blue Ocean, with its upgraded crane boom, Pacific Osprey will be capable of handling the next generation of WTGs, and under normal operating conditions, be capable of handling the following number of turbine sets per loadout:
4 x SG 10.0-193 DD,
5 x V164-10.0 MW,
5 x V174-9.5 MW,
3 x GE Haliade-X 12MW