Chinese Shipbuilding: New Bourbon 300 Series Debuts

Bourbon maintained its steady march forward to offshore dominance with a unique naming ceremony in China, which included the naming of Bourbon Liberty 254, the last of 54 vessel to be delivered of the Bourbon Liberty 200 series; and the naming of Bourbon Liberty 301, the first vessel of the Bourbon Liberty 300 series of 20 AHTS.

The new Bourbon Liberty 300 AHTS has been designed and built by Sinopacific Zhejiang Co. of China. The vessel boasts a larger deck area and liquid capacity, driven by the need to service increasing number of deepwater energy projects. Thanks to the innovative diesel electric propulsion system, this AHTS uses less fuel than vessels with conventional direct drive systems and as a result produces less pollution. With two azimuths thrusters and two bow thrusters, a fully redundant class II dynamic positioning system provides good maneuverability. In addition, this AHTS is classed FiFi I and cleanship to satisfy more stringent future environmental requirements.

 

About a year and a half ago the group announced its “BOURBON 2015 Leadership Strategy” and the ordering of three new series of vessels from Sinopacific shipyards. Bourbon Liberty 301 is the first vessel of the first series to be delivered.

“Delivery of the Bourbon Liberty 301 is an important milestone for Bourbon,” said Christian Lefèvre, CEO, Bourbon. “Our strategy of building standardized vessels in large quantities, as exemplified in the Bourbon Liberty 100 and 200 series, has been a tremendous success.”

The first Bourbon Liberty, Bourbon Liberty 101, was delivered to the Group in February 2008. Four years later, all 76 Bourbon Liberty vessels (54 Bourbon Liberty 200 and 22 Bourbon Liberty 100) are operational.

“We operate a fleet of 76 Bourbon Liberty vessels worldwide,” said Rodolphe Bouchet, VP Business Management for Marine Services. According to Bouchet the 19 remaining vessel in the 300 series will be delivered by 2014.

 

“Bourbon Liberty 300 vessels are the extension of Bourbon Liberty 200 vessels. They provide clients with a larger deck space and the capacity to carry more liquid mud and bulk products. At the same time, they use the same key features as the Bourbon Liberty 200 series (Class 2 Dynamic Positioning system, main gensets, azimuth thrusters),” said Olivier Daniel, Bourbon Newbuilding Managing Director.

The 300 series is an extension of the Cleanship Class AHTS, and further vindication of the push to service the highly demanding and environmentally stringent offshore oil and gas client. Bourbon decided voluntarily to apply this Cleanship notation to the Bourbon Liberty 300 series even though the deadweight of the vessels does not require it. 

 

The event to deliver the first of the 300 series – named Bahtera Mulia – was similarly triumphant for the privately owned Chinese shipbuilding company Sinopacific Shipbuilding Group's Zhejiang Shipbuilding Co., Ltd., as it highlights the first time that the company completely designed and built a vessel of this type.

The delivery of the SPA 80 Diesel Electric DPII 80mt AHTS marks the completion of the transition from joint to independent design that the OSV design capability of Sinopacific has, breaking the situation that preliminary designs of OSVs were mostly monopolized by European, American and Singaporean companies in the past. 

Bouchet noted that designing the vessel where it is built has certain strategic advantages, particularly in regards to efficiency of construction.

Today, Sinopacific reports that it has mastered the entire design chain ranging from the front-end concept design and basic design to the back-end detailed design and production design, dramatically improving its overall planning factors over the OSV construction project, and enabling it to more quickly respond with solutions. After nearly four years of design and research, in addition to SPA 80, SINOPACIFIC has also independently developed a series of OSV products such as the SPP 17, SPP 35 and SPU1000.

The SPA 80 was designed by SDA, a design company of SINOPACIFIC. It is a small, high-tech AHTS. Compared with the same type of AHTS designed by foreign design companies, the SPA 80 has not only absorbed their advantages, but also added many of the world's most advanced design and technical features. Its indicators, such as safety, reliability, maneuverability, operational efficiency, environmental friendliness have reached world class status.

In order to improve its environmental performance, the SPA 80 innovatively uses the fuel tank double hull protection design on the small AHTS to reduce the risk of environmental pollution caused by accidents. In addition, the SPA 80 has been added with the self-recovering function of oil slicks on the sea, and has obtained the Oil Recovery Ship certificate. Most importantly, the SPA 80 has also obtained the BV’ Clean Ship certificate for its foresight in meeting more stringent environmental requirements.

 

Specification of SPA 80 

Length, o.a. 65.8m

Breadth, molded 16m

Depth, molded 6m

Design, Draft 4.3m

Max. Draft 5.07m

Generator power 6,000 kw

Deadweight 1,800mt

Service speed 12 knots

Bollard pull 80mt