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Sealion announce new offshore construction vessel
Amongst the many announcements of newbuildings
currently being made, this one by Sealion stands out.
They have ordered a multi-purpose offshore
construction vessel from the Dutch yard Van de Giessen de Noord, who built the Toisa
Perseus and Toisa Polaris. The new building is to be twenty meters longer than the
previous models and so will be 133 meters long, although it will be similar in other respects.
Sealion state that it will have a large empty
mid body to enable the ship to be readily adapted for any client requirements. They
anticipate that it would be capable of undertaking the following functions:
Fibre optic cable laying and maintenance.
Offshore oil and gas field construction activities.
Flexible and steel pipeline installation
Live well intervention
Well testing and production
ROV and saturation diving activities.
The ship will be DP class 3 and will have accommodation for 100 personnel.
Large
number of ships under construction
The well informed Seabrokers Monthly Digest
includes a list of vessels on order and due for delivery by 2003. There are a total of 65
vessels on order!!
All we can say is - Not enough of you are
including tank cleaning systems in the spec.
Edison Chouest to operate former R&B Falcon Fleet
Those who follow events in the offshore drilling
industry will be aware that Transocean Sedco Forex, an already enormous mobile drilling
rig owner, has purchased R&B Falcon, another very large but apparently less successful
rig owner. For those of us unfamiliar with the structure of the US Gulf offshore industry
it comes as something of a surprise that as well as a large number of semi-submersibles
and jack-ups the purchase also gave TSF ownership of 34 "Offshore Tugs," 72
Tugs, 28 Crewboats and 66 service barges.
This is some sort of fleet, and since it is
likely that TSF will have enough trouble operating the rigs they have made an agreement
with Edison Chouest to form a joint venture where-in TSF will retain a minor stake in the
company and Edison Chouset will operate it.
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