As its traditional domestic offshore markets sank with the oil price, Kleven Verft applied its experience to new markets
When the naval architect Marin Teknikk approached Kleven Verft and asked if it could build a superyacht it had been commissioned to design, the reply was simple: “We have never done that before. Of course we can.”
That is how the two-yard group’s communications manager Ellen Kvalsund tells the story of how it came to build the 107m superyacht Ulysses for New Zealand’s richest person, the packaging magnate Graeme Hart. It was delivered by Kleven in August last year for final outfitting at Germany’s Stahlbau Nord shipyard from where it went into service in late February this year.
Meanwhile, Mr Hart had commissioned a second vessel, also to be called Ulysses, 10m longer than the first, which was under construction when Norwegian Solutions visited the yard in June. With a maximum capacity of 50 and a crew of 36, his guests would be limited to 14 in the first version. The longer vessel will be able to carry 66, including “a few more friends,” Ms Kvalsund remarked.
It is an illustration of the diversity that the shipbuilder has had to adopt in response to the downturn in offshore business. Another example of that approach was on sea trials in June – a diamond mining vessel for Debmarine Namibia, due for delivery from Kleven in mid July before final outfitting of its mining equipment in South Africa. “It is a very interesting new segment,” Ms Kvalsund said, which she hoped would lead to more such work.
Kleven has also picked up orders in an old segment: fishing boats. “We are pleased that fishing vessels have come back because that is part of our history,” Ms Kvalsund said. But she acknowledged that the low value of the krone had helped win the work. Otherwise, “you cannot live by building fishing vessels in Norway,” she said.
The shipbuilder holds orders for two live fish carriers for a Norwegian owner and four stern trawlers – two for a German-Icelandic organisation, one for a Spanish company and one for a French owner – that are all being built to designs supplied by Rolls-Royce. It also has a combined pelagic trawler-purse seiner for a Danish customer on its books that is being built to a design from Salt Ship Design, which is based near the yard. A cable layer for ABB is also on order to a Salt design.
The fishing vessels will all be built at Kleven’s sister yard Myklebust Verft, which normally subcontracts hull assembly to Polish builders. Because of their complexity, however, the live fish carriers will be built on the Myklebust yard’s slipway. Ms Kvalsund explained that this is because the fish tanks have to be made in one piece, so the ships will be assembled around them.
Offshore work has not been abandoned, however, and still makes up almost half the value of the shipbuilder’s orderbook. This is largely thanks to an order for six 500 tonnes bollard pull anchor handlers for Maersk Supply Service. The first had been launched shortly before Norwegian Solutions’ visit and blocks for the second were being brought together on the slipway. They each incorporate a deck machinery package supplied by Rolls-Royce worth £10 million per ship. The value of the whole contract was not disclosed.
The first is due for delivery in October with the others following at two-month intervals. As they leave the yard, the value of its offshore orders will diminish.
That trend had begun in May with the delivery of the 150m offshore construction vessel Edda Freya – the largest ship Kleven has yet built – to the marine services group Østensjø Rederi. Its first contract is with DeepOcean to work on some Statoil projects. The ship has a hybrid diesel-electric system incorporating batteries for energy storage.
Its construction and trials benefited from Kleven’s two-yard facilities. Myklebust Verft provides shiprepair and servicing alongside newbuildings and invested in a floating dock three years ago so that it could work on the largest of offshore vessels. The dock has an internal width of 28m, and 27m wide Edda Freya was docked in it to inspect a thruster prior to delivery.
A key part of Kleven’s success in a post-offshore era – it is now Norway’s largest Norwegian-owned shipbuilding group – comes from efforts to reduce costs. In particular, it has invested NKr500 million over the past five years in robotics and continues to do so. Robot welding machines, for example, can weld seams faster and with less distortion to the steel than is possible by hand. This was a vital aspect of the yard’s superyacht work, where irregularities in the thin steel used for its superstructure would be unacceptable.
Its most recent investment is in a vision-controlled welding station that uses overhead cameras to monitor and control the work, using algorithms developed at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. It is a unique facility in the offshore sector, Ms Kvalsund believes. “This is how we can stay ahead of the competition and compete on price,” she said.
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