Clarksons Renewables Offshore Wind Vessels and Project Newsletter
Clarksons Renewables Newsletter
Week 8
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WEEK 8 - HIGHLIGHTS
By David Matthews, Head of Strategy, Clarksons Renewables
In the run up to the U.S. IPF conference in Baltimore, we have been running a special U.S. newsletter each month for 3 months. The 2nd of these will be issued next week. Whilst planning for IPF and presenting at the conference we have been asked to look at the fleet required to build out the 2030 target of 30GW. Here we see a great deal of debate and opportunity for the U.S. maritime industry.
Whilst the numbers of vessels and their availability in the U.S. look to be a potential issue we see the Jones Act and MARAD working together to perhaps resolve and support those looking to invest.
The Jones Act, also known as the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, is a federal law that regulates maritime commerce in the United States. The law requires that all goods transported by water between U.S. ports must be carried on U.S.-built, U.S.-flagged, and U.S.-crewed vessels.
Critics of the Jones Act argue that it increases shipping costs and limits competition, which can ultimately harm consumers. Supporters, however, argue that the law is necessary to maintain a strong U.S. maritime industry, which is critical for national security and economic reasons.
Overall, the impact of the Jones Act on the U.S. maritime industry is a complex issue that has both positive and negative aspects, and it continues to be the subject of ongoing debate and analysis.
The Jones Act has had a significant impact on the U.S. maritime industry, particularly in terms of supporting domestic shipbuilding and seafaring jobs. the Jones Act has created a demand for domestically built and operated vessels, which has helped to support the U.S. shipbuilding industry.
In addition, the Jones Act has played a role in ensuring that there is a pool of skilled U.S. mariners to crew these vessels. This has helped to support the development of a strong domestic maritime workforce.
Compared to countries without similar protections, the U.S. maritime industry has generally been more successful in maintaining a domestic shipbuilding industry and a pool of skilled domestic mariners.
In support of the Jones Act, MARAD (the U.S. Maritime Administration) a federal agency within the Department of Transportation which is responsible for promoting and supporting the maritime industry. One of MARADs four key activities is administering programs and grants to support the development of the U.S. maritime industry, including shipbuilding, ship repair, and maritime training and education.
This is where the U.S. really stands out compared to other nations, where they are now supporting the development of offshore wind with finance at approx. 4% for 85.5% of the debt. This is very low when compared to other nations and can be repaid over 25 years.
This matters because those vessel owners wanting to invest in new vessels for offshore wind have had a difficult 10 years since the O&G market collapse in 2014, leaving them with very little equity o deploy which outside the U.S. would need to be a minimum of 50%.
Many countries are now looking to rebuild or develop their national fleets and organic national marine capabilities for development and security reasons, and this looks like a solution to do exactly that. It will be interesting to see how the MARAD and Jones Act work together to help meet the U.S. 2030 targets.
OFFSHORE RENEWABLES NEWS
Seaway7 has signed a transport and installation cables contract for Hai Long offshore wind farm in Taiwan. The signing follows the contractual signing which was announced to the market last week.- The scope of work includes the transport and installation of inner-array cables, the respective cable protection systems, and four export cables. The cable installation will be carried out by cable-lay vessel Maersk Connector, which is on long-term charter to Seaway7. This contract award completes the key procurement for the project which is now steadily moving into construction phase. The project remains subject to final investment decision (FID). Source: Seaway7
Fugro secures significant offshore wind programme on the US East Coast. The Netherlands-based company has signed a letter of intent to optimise and perform a site characterisation programme for undisclosed offshore wind development on the US East Coast. The programme is focused on accelerating the construction and operations permitting process and represents Fugro’s latest work in the US. Fieldwork will begin in the second quarter of 2023 and involves the collection of geophysical and geotechnical datasets. Supporting site planning and engineering design, the developing ground model will be made available to the project owners in near real-time to facilitate faster decision-making by project engineers and improved collaboration with stakeholders, including regulatory agencies, according to the company. Source: Fugro
Seajacks has secured another contract in Northwest Europe for one of its NG2500-class jack-ups. Eneti has announced that Seajacks UK Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Eneti, has signed the contract for between 41 and 53 days of employment for one of its NG2500-class vessels that will generate between approximately $3.3 million and $4.1 million of revenue in 2023. In January, Seajacks UK signed two new contracts in North West Europe for between 75 and 102 days of employment for one of its NG2500-class vessels. Source: Eneti
Seaway7 and Saipem have entered into a commercial collaboration agreement to jointly identify, bid and execute fixed offshore wind projects. Both companies will pursue selected projects where the combined utilisation of the companies’ complementary assets, technologies, products and competencies will generate synergies and improve project economics. The target projects are large integrated turnkey developments in Europe, the UK and the US, with the possibility of expanding to other geographic areas. Source: Seaway7
TDI Brooks has been awarded sixth offshore wind contract on US East Coast. TDI-Brooks last week was awarded a geophysical, geotechnical and benthic sampling survey campaigns to study seabed conditions within the project lease area and potential export cable corridors off the US East Coast. The data collected will help determine safe and responsible project design and engineering along with identifying potential geohazards and benthic habitats. This is the sixth offshore wind project awarded to TDI-Brooks in the past 2+ years. TDI-Brooks expects to begin the program in April and will continue through summer 2023 with two to three vessels in operations. From the start of early Spring 2021, TDI-Brooks continues to drive forward in an emerging market performing marine site investigations for several of the offshore wind operators on the US East Coast. Source: TDI-Brooks
DEME’S Sea Installer is outfitted with a new crane and ready for operations in the US. A new 1,600mt Huisman Leg Encircling Crane was installed onto the jack-up installation vessel. With this new equipment the Sea Installer is ready to start works on the Vineyard project in the US. According to DEME, the company is responsible for shuttling GE wind turbines on US barges outfitted with bargemaster motion compensated tables that enable them to execute vessel-to-vessel transfers of the WTG components. Source: DEME and Huisman
P&O Maritime Logistics has announced plans to convert one of its multi-carrying vessels (MCV’s) into a cable-laying vessel (CLV). Set to start operations in the third quarter of 2024, the newly converted will be powered by alternative energy. P&O Maritime Logistics anticipates that one of the main use of the vessel will be to connect offshore wind farms with the mainland. The new CLV will have the ability to host up to 64 seafarers and features a single basket cable carousel with an outside diameter of 24 meters. It will feature an ultra-shallow draft, engineered grounding capability and a 4,000-tonne cable load capacity. Source: P&O Maritime logistics
DP Gezina will be fitted with Ampelmann offshore access system. Chevalier Floatels says its walk-to-work vessel DP Gezina has completed an accommodation support charter in the Middle East and is heading to a shipyard where an Ampelmann A-type gangway will be installed. The vessel will also be fitted with a 3.5-m pedestal under the gangway. The gangway will able to connect up to 23.5m above the waterline. Installation and certification works will be completed on 29 of March and the vessel will then be available for charters. Source: Clarksons Renewables Intelligence Network
The US Department of the Interior (DOI) has announced the first offshore wind lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico. DOI has announced a Proposed Sale Notice, which includes a 102,480-acre area offshore Lake Charles, Louisiana, and two areas offshore Galveston, Texas, one comprising 102,480 acres and the other comprising 96,786 acres; totalling 301,746 acres for offshore wind development. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is seeking public comments on which, if any, of the two lease areas offshore Galveston should be offered in the Final Sale Notice. These areas have the potential to power almost 1.3 million homes with clean energy. Source: American Clean Power Association
Danish government plans to launch tenders for 9 GW of offshore wind power this year, sufficient to cover ~100% of the country's electricity consumption. Negotiations on the framework for these tenders will start next month, with the aim of having everything up and running by 2030. Assuming 3,500 full-load hours on average, the 9 GW will produce almost 32 TWh annually, sufficient to cover all current electricity consumption in Denmark. The Scandinavian country is therefore preparing to also export a share of this electricity to European neighbors. Ways to apply this electricity for industrial purposes like hydrogen and ammonia production is also being considered. On top of this, the government is exploring ways to allow developers to build even more turbines at the tender sites, potentially increasing the already impressive 9 GW of capacity. Source: Clarksons Securities
Spanish renewable developer Ibereólica Renovables has just secured approval to build a colossal 805 MW wind farm in Chile. The project will feature 122 wind turbines, making it one of the largest wind farms in South America. The company had initially planned for 128 turbines at the site, but had to cut 6 turbines due to environmental concerns. The total capacity of the wind farm, however, will still be higher than initially planned as Siemens Gamesa has increased the output of the planned turbines for the project from 6.2 MW to 6.6 MW each through software updates. A planned investment cost of $684m puts the unit cost at $0.85m/MW, placing it at the lower end of where we have seen onshore wind costs lately. The plant will generate around 3% of Chile's total electricity consumption once completed. Source: Clarksons Securities
Offshore cable installation activities about to start at South Fork offshore wind farm in New York. Laying of the project's 68 nautical miles (about 126 kilometres) of submarine cable is scheduled to begin in early 2023. The installation involves six stages: seabed preparation, sea-to-shore interconnection preparation, nearshore cable laying, nearshore cable burial, offshore cable laying, and offshore cable burial. Weather or sea conditions and other factors may impact the expected schedule. DEME’s dual-fuel cable laying vessel Living Stone picked up the submarine export cable for installation at the Nexans cable facility in Charleston, South Carolina. South Fork Wind, for which Ørsted and Eversource reached the final investment decision (FID) at the beginning of last year, will be New York’s first offshore wind farm and the second commercial-scale project of this kind to be built in the US, following Vineyard Wind. The wind farm will comprise twelve 11 MW Siemens Gamesa turbines installed at the project site some 30 kilometres (19 miles) southeast of Block Island, Rhode Island, and some 56 kilometres (35 miles) east of Montauk Point, New York. Source: Offshore Energy
Vattenfall is given permission to lay submarine cables at Kriegers Flak for offshore wind energy. The Swedish government has given Vattenfall permission to lay submarine cables that is needed to supply electricity to the planned Kriegers Flak wind farm in the southern Baltic Sea. The work is required to be completed within a period of ten years.
The permit is subject to a number of conditions that regulate how the construction work is to be carried out and which are necessary to protect the environment from damage and to ensure safety. Source: Swedish Government
Contacts
OSLO
Frederik Colban-Andersen | Managing Director
Erik Tønne | Managing Director, Market Analysis
Jens Egenberg | Head of Research Renewables
Anders C. Hagen | Chartering Walk-2-Work, Subsea
Vegard Vollsæter | S&P and Newbuilding T&I/CSOV
Espen Bjørnson | Chartering Subsea & Wind
HAMBURG
David Matthews | Head of Strategy Renewables
Rouven C. Willner | Projects SOV, CSOV
Henning Leverkus | Chartering CTV, Tugs & Workboats
Sina Ingber | Marketing & Projects
COPENHAGEN
Gabriel Andersen | Principal Consultant Logistics and EPC
LONDON
Neil Buchan | Head of APAC Subsea & Wind
Mikkel Nielsen | Principal Consultant Logistics & O&M
Chris Roberts | Chartering and Renewables Consultant
ABERDEEN
James Braid | Divisional Director Logistics, Transport & Installation
Olivier Candeel | Chartering & Consultant Transport & Installation
Oliver Thompson | Market Analyst, Transport & Installation
Chris Tweedie | Chartering Subsea and Offshore
HOUSTON
Jonathan Lints | Director Subsea and Renewables
Jack Fitzgerald | Chartering Jones Act Specialist
Tylor Bojé | Chartering OSV / Jones Act Lead
SHANGHAI
Jack Qiu | Projects Newbuilds and China
SINGAPORE
Tilly Manley | Chartering APAC Renewables