Sovcomflot’s icebreaking standby vessel Yevgeny Primakov took the OSJ Support Vessel of the Year award at this year’s OSJ Conference, Awards & Exhibition, while CTV WEM 1 and Maersk Inventor gave it a run for its money
Sovcomflot multipurpose icebreaking standby vessel Yevgeny Primakov was awarded the Offshore Support Journal’s Support Vessel of the Year award for 2019 at the Annual Offshore Support Journal Conference, Awards & Exhibition in London.
Sponsored by DNV GL and determined by industry voting, the award was collected by Sovcomflot executive vice president, chief technology officer and chief operating officer Igor Tonkovidov at an industry gala on 6 February.
Yevgeny Primakov was delivered to Sovcomflot (SCF Group) in January 2018 by Arctech Helsinki Shipyard, a subsidiary of United Shipbuilding Corporation. The multipurpose icebreaking standby vessel serves the offshore oil and gas platforms of the Sakhalin-2 project under a long-term agreement between Sovcomflot and Sakhalin Energy.
At the time of Yevgeny Primakov’s delivery, Sakhalin Energy production director Ole Myklestad, said, “I can proudly say that in the next 20 years the ship will ensure the best operating conditions and safety at our three offshore production platforms in the Sea of Okhotsk.”
Sovcomflot chief executive Sergey Frank added, “Sovcomflot has 20 vessels supporting the Sakhalin I and Sakhalin II projects. Yevgeny Primakov is one of the company’s best vessels in terms of technical capacity, multifunctionality and power-to-weight ratio. This ship is the result of our long experience in operating vessels in severe ice conditions, as well as the experience of many generations of Russian seamen.”
The vessel is designed to operate in the challenging ice and navigation conditions of the Sea of Okhotsk. Assigned an Ice-15 ice class, Yevgeny Primakov is 104.4 m long, has a beam of 21 m and a deadweight tonnage of 3,670 tonnes. The icebreaking standby vessel is equipped with two Azipod units with a total capacity of 13 MW that provide high levels of manoeuvrability and allow it to sail independently through ice up to 1.5 m thick, with a snow cover of up to 20 cm.
Since it entered service in Q1 2018, Yevgeny Primakov has been ensuring the safe operation of Sakhalin-2 offshore platforms, providing year-round standby, search and rescue services. The vessel also performs ice management functions, preventing the formation of hummocks and heavy ice fields around the platforms and escorting other vessels through the ice.
In addition to those services, Yevgeny Primakov is equipped to quickly respond to possible emergencies and undertake sub-surface surveys, engineering, and repair works, when needed.
Despite its relatively small size, Yevgeny Primakov can provide sleeping accommodation for 70 people (in addition to 18 crew), and in the event of an emergency it can accommodate up to 150 people.
With Saint Petersburg as its port of registry, Yevgeny Primakov flies the Russian flag.
Yevgeny Primakov is yet another vessel in a series of multifunctional icebreaking supply and standby vessels built under a long-term agreement between Sovcomfolt and Sakhalin Energy, the Sakhalin-2 project operator. The first three vessels in the series, Gennady Nevelskoy, Stepan Makarov and Fedor Ushakov joined the Sovcomfolt fleet in 2017 and are all operating near Sakhalin.
SCF Group is one of the world's leading energy shipping companies, specialising in the transportation of crude oil, petroleum products, and LNG, as well as the servicing of offshore oil and gas exploration and production. The company’s fleet includes 145 vessels — 80 of which have ice class —with a total deadweight of 12.5M tonnes. SCF Group operates the world’s largest fleet of icebreaking supply and standby vessels, seven of which service Sakhalin-2.
Maersk Inventor goes to work in West Africa
Subsea support vessel Maersk Inventor is performing light well intervention work off West Africa
One of the runners-up at this year’s Annual Offshore Support Journal Conference’s Support Vessel of the Year award was the subsea support vessel Maersk Inventor, which has gone to work in West Africa, according to a social media post on 13 February 2019 by its Danish owner Maersk Supply Service.
“She is the second vessel of our I-class subsea support vessels (SSVs) to be performing light well intervention work, along with the Maersk Installer,” said Maersk Supply Service in a tweet.
The third vessel delivered by China’s COSCO (Dalian) Shipyard of the Stingray subsea support vessel series, the Maersk Inventor is designed as a flexible, stable and reliable platform to carry out a wide range of operations, in challenging offshore environments.
Based on an MT6027 design from Norway’s Marin Teknikk AS, the SSV has an overall length of 137 m, a beam of 27 m and has been outfitted with extensive internal and external safety and energy efficiency features. Maersk Inventor has a large free deck area of 1,850 m2 with more than 300 sea fastenings for cargo, two work-class ROVs capable of operating in up to 3,000 m of water, two moonpools, and two large subsea cranes.
The largest of the two moonpools, measuring 8.4 m x 8.4 m, is located in the centreline of the vessel, making it accessible from the main deck. This offers the possibility of deploying equipment through the moonpool in a protected environment under harsh weather conditions, maximising uptime and customer value.
The two knuckle-boom cranes, of 400- and 100-tonnes lifting capacity, are fully active heave compensated and capable of operating in up to 3,000 m water depth.
In addition, diesel-electric propulsion, fixed-pitch thrusters and the main propellers enable the vessel to operate in DP2 or DP3 mode under all conditions, creating the required thrust without idle loss.
Maersk Inventor features modern accommodation for up to 120 people in single cabins, with three conference rooms and 10 client offices. It has been built in compliance with DNV GL’s comfort classification for passenger vessels to provide the highest level of comfort for all personnel onboard.
WEM 1 offers stability for windfarm technicians
Following its delivery, WEM 1 went on a charter to the Nordsee One offshore windfarm in the German Bight
Offshore windfarms are located where the waters are shallow and the winds favourable. Nordsee One windfarm is located about 40 km north of the island of Juist in the German Bight, where the average wind speed is about 10 m/sec (36 km/h) and the water depths are between 26 m and 29 m. While that makes for an ideal location for an offshore windfarm, it can be a challenging one for crew transfer vessels (CTVs) that service the wind turbines because shallow waters and strong winds generate higher and sharper waves.
The other nominee for the Annual Offshore Support Journal Conference’s Support Vessel of the Year award 2019 was the CTV WEM 1, which went on a six-month charter to Nordsee One in June 2018, following its delivery to UK’s Wind Energy Marine by Piriou Vietnam. WEM 1 was designed by the UK’s BMT Nigel Gee to offer a stable, comfortable and safe platform for the three crew and 24 technicians it transports between the shore and offshore wind turbines. Equipped with a deck crane forward, the WEM 1 can accommodate a maximum of 20 tonnes of cargo.
Built with an aluminium catamaran hull, WEM 1 has a resiliently-mounted superstructure and adjustable interceptors to provide maximum comfort and safety when operating at high speeds. Waterjet propulsion makes the WEM 1 highly manoeuvrable, allowing it to reach service speeds of 25.5 knots.
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