COSCO SHIPPING Heavy Transport shared images on Wednesday of its semi-submersible heavy lift and transportation vessel carrying a massive semi-submersible drilling rig.
The company, which specializes in the handling of heavy cargoes, did not say much about the images apart from posting the following caption: "COSCO Shipping Specialized’s Xin Guang Hua loaded with a semi-sub drilling rig in the North Sea."
Luckily, the images shared are high-res, so one can see the name of the rig - it is the 2015-built Transocean Endurance semi-submersible rig, owned by Transocean.
As previously reported by Offshore Engineer, the Transocean Endurance harsh-environment semi-submersible drilling rig, which was most recently used for drilling operations in Norway, has secured a multi-well plug and abandonment contract in Australia at a rate of $380,000 per day plus options. The contract runs from January 2024 to August 2024.
According to the Xin Guang Hua vessel's automatic identification system (AIS), as found on the MarineTraffic website, the vessel left Olen, Norway, presumably carrying the Transocean Endurance, on October 8 and is en route to an anchorage in Singapore, where it is expected to arrive on December 4.
The rig's latest position transmission, per MarineTraffic, was on October 1 from Olen, in Norway. According to available information, the heavy lifter loaded the 116-meter-long, 97-meter-wide rig with 58,639 mt displacement on October 2 in the fjord outside Westcon Yard in Olen.
At the time of writing, the Xin Guang Hua had passed the La Manche channel between France and the UK, and was sailing past Brest, Brittany, France.
Update:
The news of the sailaway was confirmed by Westcon Yard on social media. The company said: "The world's 2nd largest Heavy Lift vessel, MV "XIN GUANG HUA" from COSCO SHIPPING visited Ølensfjord and Westcon Yards last week. With its enormous dimensions of 255m X 68m and deadweight 98,000T, this is one of the largest ships that have ever visited us. We made a film showing the operation on the fjord where the ship lowered to receive the its huge cargo. We wish "XIN GUANG HUA" Bon Voyage"