Heavy Lift Vessel News

Hamburg-based heavy lift shipping company United Heavy Lift held a naming ceremony for its newest heavy lift ship, UHL Fable.Built at the CSSC Hudong shipyard in Shanghai over a relatively short period of time, the newbuild is the 19th and final vessel in United Heavy Lift's F900 Eco-Lifter series. The construction time from keel laying in July 2023 to delivery to the German bridge crew led by Captain Karsten Strotmann and his first officer Pit Awe in April 2024 was just nine months.Measuring about 150 meters long…

AAL Hamburg, the second of eight Super B-Class heavy lift series being built for AAL Shipping has been named during a formal ceremony at the CSSC Huangpu-Wenchong Shipyard in Guangzhou, China. The newbuild will soon be delivered and commence a busy maiden voyage to Europe.The 32,000 dwt, dual fuel multipurpose heavy lift vessel is equipped with three heavy lift port side cranes (350 tonnes capacity each and 700 tonnes maximum lift) as well as the latest innovation from the AAL Engineering Team, the ‘AAL ECO-DECK’.

Dutch shipbuilder Damen and towage company Muller Dordrecht have held christening ceremony took place in the Netherlands, marking the delivery of a new Damen ASD Tug 3212.Named En Avant 26, the vessel was the third to be delivered by Damen to Muller Dordrecht in the past three years, the others being another Damen ASD Tug 3212 En Avant 25 and a Z-drive Pushboat built by Concordia Damen.The En Avant 26 was built at Damen’s specialist tug yard Damen Song Cam Shipyard in Haiphong…

Esgian provides an update on exploration drilling in its Week 25 Rig Analytics Market Roundup.Report SummaryDrilling Activity and DiscoveriesOslo-listed BlueNord announced on Monday the start-up of drilling operations on the Harald East Middle Jurassic well (HEMJ) in the Danish North Sea.Occidental Petroleum (Oxy) encountered non-commercial hydrocarbons at the Orange #1 exploration well on Mississippi Canyon Block 216 in the US GOM and the well has been plugged and abandoned.

Esgian provides an update on rig sales and the shrinking pool of vintage semisubs in its Week 22 Rig Analytics Market Roundup.Report SummaryContractsNoble Corporation has secured a new well intervention contract with Harbour Energy in UK waters of the North Sea for the 350-ft jackup Noble Resilient.Drilling Activity and DiscoveriesThe recently drilled offshore production well at the Kupe oil and gas field in New Zealand is underperforming despite a recent wireline well intervention.BW…

Dominion Energy has announced that the first monopile foundation for the 2.6-gigawatt Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW), the largest offshore wind farm under construction in the United States, has been installed approximately 29 miles off the Virginia Beach coast.The monopile was installed by the Orion, DEME Group's heavy lift vessel.Once complete in late 2026, CVOW will consist of 176 turbines that will generate enough clean, renewable energy to power up to 660,000 homes…

Foundation installation work has commenced for the second phase of what will become the world’s largest offshore wind farm, Dogger Bank, in the U.K. North Sea.Seaway7’s vessels Seaway Strashnov and Seaway Alfa Lift have commenced installation of monopile foundations and transition pieces for the Dogger Bank B phase of the offshore wind farm project. The team recently completed installation of all 95 transition pieces on Dogger Bank A, thus concluding the installation of the foundations for the first phase of the project.Olly Cass…

Esgian reports an eventful week with contract confirmations, terminations and suspensions in its Week 18 Rig Analytics Market Roundup.Report SummaryContractsBurullus Gas Company, the self-operated joint venture between Shell Egypt, the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS), the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) and Petronas, has agreed to move forward with the development of Phase 11 in Egypt's Nile Delta in the Mediterranean Sea.QatarEnergy has exercised a one-year option for Borr Drilling 400-ft jackup Groa…

A formal naming ceremony was held at the CSSC Huangpu Wenchong Shipbuilding Company in the Chinese province of Quanzhou on April 26 for AAL Shipping’s new heavy lift vessel, AAL Limassol.Due to sail on her maiden voyage from China into Europe, the 32,000 deadweight AAL Limassol is set to carry a full weather deck of project heavy lift cargo, including two 135-meter-long barges, weighing 1,650 tonnes and fifteen 80.5-meter-long wind blades. The newbuild will sail under the Cyprus flag.Kyriacos Panayides…

Dutch offshore contractor Allseas informs it has secured the contract to perform transport and installation (T&I) of two major substations (so called OSS) for the Gennaker offshore wind farm in the German Baltic Sea, developed by transmission operator 50Hertz.Located 15 kilometers off the German coast near the Darß peninsula, and with a production capacity of 900 MW, Gennaker will be the largest and most powerful offshore wind farm in the Baltic Sea to date.Awarded by the Dutch-Belgian HSI consortium – HSM Offshore Energy…

Sanmar has delivered a compact RAscal 1500 ASD tug to CCI Bayonne Pays Basque, which manages the Port of Bayonne in France.Based on the RAscal 1500 design series from Canadian naval architects Robert Allan Ltd, Göksu V is 14.95 meters long with a molded breadth of 8.3 meters and a least molded depth and navigational draft of 3 meters. It can achieve 16 tons of bollard pull and a speed of 10 knots.Göksu V is an ASD tug that has been specifically designed and developed for ship-handling in modern, but typically smaller harbor and port operations.

Esgian's last roundup of the year for the Week 52 puts spotlight on new developments for Dolphin Drilling semisub, Seadrill drillships, as well as Shell’s plans for Australia and ONGC’s new tender for jackups in India.ContractsDolphin Drilling has signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) with an undisclosed operator for the 1,500-ft semisubmersible Borgland Dolphin to undertake a 500-day drilling campaign in the UK. The drilling campaign is planned to begin directly after the firm part of the contract period with EnQuest, which was announced in late November 2023.

The new Orca Class heavy-lift vessels being built at China's Wuhu Shipyard for the Jumbo-SAL-Alliance will be propelled by SCHOTTEL ControllablePropellers (SCP).The four-bladed controllable pitch propellers type SCP 129 will feature an input power of up to 8,810 kW and a propeller diameter of six meters.Jumbo-SAL-Alliance is a commercial joint venture between German shipping company SAL Heavy Lift and Netherlands-based Jumbo Shipping. Their new Orca Class, which includes four firm and two optional vessels…

The installation of the first monopiles and transition pieces has kicked off for the first commercial-scale offshore wind farm in the United States - the Vineyard Wind 1.“We can finally say it – as of today, there is ‘steel in the water,’” said Klaus S. Moeller, CEO of Vineyard Wind, the company developing the Vineyard Wind 1 offshore wind farm, located in a federal wind energy area 15 miles south of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, and 35 miles from mainland Massachusetts.Vineyard…

In addition to wind, offshore wind demands human energy, individuals with knowledge and skills first to build and then operate and maintain the dozens of projects required to meet President Biden’s 2030 goal of 30 GW of offshore generation. In an October 2022 National Renewable Energy Laboratory report – “U.S. Offshore Wind Workforce Assessment” – the authors estimate that it will require, on average, between 15,000 and 58,000 employees annually, depending on domestic content scenarios, to build out a huge new wind machine.Mariners and mariner training are integral to offshore wind.

AAL Shipping has released a short film highlighting the design of its mega size 32,000dwt Super B-Class heavy lift vessels. The first, the AAL Limassol, is expected to be launched next year.The Super B-Class design was a collaboration between AAL’s engineering and commercial teams and sister company, Columbia Shipmanagement (CSM). The vessels were designed to be the most efficient and competent multi-purpose vessels (MPVs) available, built on the engineering team’s expertise in handling heavy lift…

Singapore-based Cyan Renewables has contracted Ulstein Design & Solutions BV to design a series of new floating foundation installation vessels (FFIV) dedicated to offshore wind. Ulstein said that the new FFIVs would feature adequate deck space and crane capacity to meet developments in foundation design, including monopiles and jackets. In addition, they will also have low emission capability, using a hybrid power system consisting of dual-fuel engines (methanol), shore power and a battery energy storage system.Torgeir E.

Wagenborg Towage confirmed Monday that Jan De Nul had awarded it a contract for transporting 107 monopile foundations for Gode Wind 3 and Borkum Riffgrund 3 offshore wind farms in Germany to Eemshaven. Assisted by the tug ‘waterlines’, the first transports arrived in Eemshaven under agency of Wagenborg.In the upcoming months, Wagenborg will perform another 35 voyages with monopiles from Germany and Denmark to the temporary storage in Eemshaven using a specially equipped pontoon…

Salvors have removed two tugs from the Mersey River in Devonport on the northwest coast of Tasmania that had been sunk by a cement carrier in January.New South Wales based emergency response, salvage and environmental support specialist, United Salvage, engaged AAL Shipping to supply the 31,000DWT 700 tonne heavy lift vessel AAL Melbourne for lifting of the tugs and their onward shipment along the East Coast to Brisbane. The first tug, the 420 tonne York Cove, was pulled out of…

Norwegian-based shipbuilding and design group Ulstein has unveiled the design for a new foundation installation vessel enabling operators and contractors to efficiently transport and install monopiles or jacket foundations up to 5,000 tons.The new ULSTEIN HX122 vessel features an ULSTEIN X-BOW and an ultra-high-capacity 8,000 mt crane, engineered for the next generation of foundations in the offshore wind industry.Market analysts and brokers have flagged a projected shortage of foundation installation vessels as existing tonnage and newbuild orders are expected to lag behind projected demand.

China's WuHu Shipyard has cut the first steel for an Orca series heavy lift vessel being built for an alliance between SAL Heavy Lift GmbH and Jumbo Shipping.Back in September 2022, SAL and Jumbo said they had signed building contracts for four firms plus two optional new-generation heavy lift ships with Wuhu Shipyard."After a long and extensive planning phase, our Orca newbuilding series has finally kicked off! On 22 February, the ceremonial first steel cutting was conducted at WuHu Shipyard in Wuhu, China," the Dutch heavy lifting and transportation firm Jumbo said Tuesday.

Offshore installation company Jan De Nul said Thursday that Les Alizés, its next-generation heavy lift vessel, had sailed away from the CMHI Haimen Shipyard in China and is currently heading for Europe.The vessel was delivered by the shipyard on January 16 and departed Thursday.Les Alizés is designed for loading, transporting, lifting, and installing offshore wind turbine foundations. The main features are a main crane of 5,000 tons, a deck loading capacity of 61,000 tons, and a deck space of 9…

Four Greenpeace activists on Tuesday boarded the heavy transportation vessel carrying Shell's Penguins FPSO aboard, calling on the oil major to "Stop Drilling. Start Paying."Six Greenpeace International activists attempted, and four managed to board Boskalis' White Marlin vessel in the Atlantic Ocean north of the Canary Islands. The heavy transportation vessel is carrying the recently delivered 34,000t Penguins FPSO, which is planned to ultimately be deployed northeast of the Shetland Islands in the North Sea for the Penguins field project.