News

Alstom to Equip DP Platform Supply Vessels




Alstom has been awarded a million order to supply equipment for 10 new platform supply vessels which are being built in the U.S. Bender Shipbuilding & Repair Co. Inc. of Mobile Ala., awarded Alstom the contract to design, install and commission the fully integrated AC electrical propulsion and control systems for the 210-ft. support vessels which will be based in the Gulf of Mexico.
Alstom will also provide support and training at its technical training facility in Houston, Texas. The equipment includes Class II DP systems from Alstom's 'A' Series and vessel control systems, as well as switchboards, transformers and AC variable speed drive trains. The switchboards will be built in the US, allowing flexibility during the design phases of the project.
Steve Raynor, Sales Director for Alstom's Marine and Offshore Activity, said: "We secured this significant contract based on our proven record with Bender Shipbuilding, having completed a number of orders for them in the past. We were also the only company which could serve as a single source supplier for all the DP, vessel management system and propulsion equipment and provide full support through our training facility in Texas." The first vessel is due to be delivered in March 2004



Early in 2Q 2002, Noble announced it would purchase two semisubmersible rigs from Transocean. With the transaction finalized, Noble plans to upgrade the Transocean 96 and Transocean 97 to make them suitable for deepwater work. The semis, last upgraded in 1997, are both pentagon design rigs capable of operating in 2,350-ft water depth. Plans call for an investment between million and million per unit for refurbishments and upgrades.



Statoil's Siri platform is set to host three new Danish sector developments. State oil company DONG has submitted plans for its Cecilie and Nini discoveries to the Danish Energy Agency. These call for an unmanned wellhead platform on each of the fields, which have combined oil reserves of 65 MMbbl. Pipelines would be installed between the two platforms, and to Siri, where the oil would be processed. Siri is located 10 km from Cecilie and 31 km from Nini. Development costs are put at just under million, with a probable start to production next summer.
Simultaneously, Statoil plans to develop the much smaller Siri East segment 1 via two subsea wells tied back to the Siri platform. A water injection line could be installed to serve both Siri East and Nini. Statoil would also likely place a subsea water injector on Stine, the western segment (2) of Siri East, which it brought on-stream this January via an extended-reach well from the Siri platform.
In time, DONG is expected to assume operatorship of the Siri license as owner of the bulk of the incoming oil. It is also examining the possibility of laying a new westbound trunkline to take gas to the UK from Danish sector fields.




Most would more than likely offer a collective groan of discontent by this suggestion since they often spend more than four months at sea in one given shot. Time spent away from relaxation with their families is precious to these individuals as it is hard to come by. Therefore RTM Star (Simulation, Training, Assessment & Research) Center, located in Dania Beach, Fla. And Toledo, Ohio, strives to give students who come to the training center an atmosphere that exudes a "home away from home" environment. Driving along the industrious thoroughfare of U.S. 1 (or Federal Highway, as the locals call it), stands a building on the corner of West Dixie Highway that could easily be mistaken for a country club. Entering RTM STAR Center's Dania Beach, Fla. facility, guests and students are greeted by tall palm trees, maintenance people on golf carts and neatly lined and labeled guest rooms (125 to be exact), as well as an outdoor swimming pool, exercise facility and movie theatre. The facility also boasts what it is the largest and one of the most comprehensive training facilities for merchant mariners and officers. The Center is always researching its course offerings to offer students the most up-to-date classes, and is home to the world's only 360-degree Full Mission Bridge Simulator, which is complemented by the center's Slow Speed and Medium Speed Diesel Simulators. The Bridge Simulator, which provides an immense 360-degree view of real-time, at-sea situations, is an invaluable training tool that features a Litton Sperry 2100 Integrated Bridge System (IBS) similar to the one found on RCCL's Voyager of the Seas. This one-of-a-kind device boasts podded propulsion capability, as well as Dynamic Positioning (DP) capability, and is set off by the Center's 250-degree bridge simulator. Walking into the simulation room, is much like stepping into a virtual reality-type ride at Epcot Center in Disney World. Star Center made MR/EN right at home by displaying a real time at sea "scene" of New York Harbor complete with the Verrazano Bridge, Liberty Island and Governor's Island in the distance. While officers command the controls of the simulator, simulator operators located in an adjacent room throw many situations in their directions many that could be life threatening or pose imminent danger. When MR/EN visited Star Center, the operators provided a scenario on a tanker traveling through New York Harbor in both the day and evening. In the vessel's field of vision lay the New York skyline, as well as several types of ships cruising through the harbor on a busy day. The simulator operators threw anything and everything in the tanker path, from small sailboats to U.S. Navy destroyers to containerships, and could include, for example, a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter cruising overhead looking for landing spot, or a bevy of media helicopters covering a high-publicity event, such as Fleet Week. The officers at STAR Center even go as far as to communicate to the students via "staged" traffic on the simulator's radio. According to Graeme Holman, STAR Center's head of Customer Service & Operations, the simulator is capable of running a variety of situations. "The simulator can be changed from port to starboard side, can mimic an oil spill and even change the wind and current speed. Mariners who are trained on this system will always say that this is how a ship is handled in real time situations." Evolution of a Major Training Facility Since opening its doors to the maritime community in the winter of 1993, STAR Center's three-story building at its Florida facility has expanded rapidly, an expansion which includes additional floors on the original building and the commencement of operations in Toledo, Ohio for training on inland waterways and Great Lakes. STAR Center is preparing for the grand opening of its new waterfront training facility located in Fort Lauderdale just minutes from its Dania Beach facility. While fast craft training is not new to STAR Center, according to Jerry Pannell, head of STAR Center's Deck department, the center, (which in the past had to rent out fast rescue craft from a shore-based facility), will now have this "self contained facility" approximately 2.5 miles from its main training grounds. The new center, which at press time was scheduled for a mid-August opening, will house one 18-ft. (5.5-m) and two 26-ft. (8-m) fast rescue boats, a single-point davit for launching and recovering boats, enclosed SOLAS certified lifeboat, davit launchable liferaft, as well as classrooms and workshops. Designed to meet STCW '95 compliant training, and are U.S.C.G. approved, the curriculum followed at this new center will focus on Proficiency in Fast Rescue Boat and Proficiency in Survival Craft. A spitting image of a diesel electric engine onboard a traditional cruise ship, the Center' Full Mission Diesel Electric Engineroom Simulator puts the "real" in real time as it is based on a large cruise ship running on 40 MW of power at 6,600 volts. When MR/EN was hosted by Dwight Hutchinson, STAR Center's director, Quality and Engineering, he explained how students operate the simulator's controls, which run on Kongsberg Maritime Ship Systems (KMSS) software. The simulator, which is actually the former engine plant from the cruise ship Sun Princess, boasts four diesel generator sets connected to two 14 MW synchronous propulsion motors. Four thrusters and two emergency generators are also part of the simulated vessel's power package based on a 77,000 grt with a cruising speed of 18.5 knots. Hutchinson also mentioned that this past May, STAR Center has furthered its commitment to providing the highest grade of advanced training via its recent transition to ISO 9000:2000 certification. This award, which was granted by the Center via a third party conversion audit by Det Norske Veritas, recognizes the Center as the only training facility in the U.S. to hold this type of certification. While the staff at STAR Center realizes that the certification puts the facility in a high regard, it also translates to more time researching and upgrading its curriculum and programs. This, however is not foreign to the facility, as its instructors and full time staff already have a handle on this specifically Capt. Al Stiles, who is the Center's Curriculum & Program Development Dept. Head. According to Stiles, approximately 60 percent of the Center's course offerings are cruise-oriented, and, as always, have been tailored to meet the requirements of each individual cruise line.


According to Kevin Peters president of Miami Diver, there was no doubt in his mind that the alliance would not have been an immediate success. "Because of this venture, we now have more locations and more trained personnel to serve the cruise industry," Peters said. The Subsea Solutions Alliance has responded to and carried out emergency repair for cruise ships from Miami to Alaska, from Europe to Australia and Asia. Recently through members of the Subsea Solutions Alliance a blade change was carried out on a cruise ship in the Port of Venice, a stern seal repair was done on another cruise ship in Alaska, a stabilizer repair on another cruise ship in Peru, a propeller repair in Miami along with a bowthruster repair for a cruise ship in Australia. While Peters' goal is of course to provide state-of-the-art repair solutions that are cost-effective, he would also like to continue providing cruise lines with maintenance support of their fleets. "Our focus for the last 10 years has been on cruise ships," Peters said of Miami Diver. "Since many of these vessels were built in the 1980's, they will need to be maintained. In addition, many experimental, or innovative equipment has been added so therefore more problems could occur, and when this happens, the Subsea Solution Alliance will be called. Gone are the days where a ship had to go into a drydock and risk missing precious moneymaking days at sea. A quick call to any of the Subsea Solution Alliance members allows the vessel to have all its work completed, with out delay to the vessel. Depending upon the complexity of the job the personnel may travel with the vessel and perform repairs while the vessel moves to a variety of ports. An example of this was (from March 22 - April 9, 1996) when wake modifiers were installed on the trailing edges of the primary strut arms on a new cruise ship that was experiencing a "singing" noise that could be heard inside the staterooms. The noise, according to Peters was the result of a design flaw in the vessel's strut during original construction. As the vessel pulled into various port locations, such as San Juan, St. Thomas and Santo Domingo, the divers went to work beneath performing hyperbaric weld modifications in accordance with the vessel's classification society Det Norske Veritas. Each day, divers would begin welding the wake modifiers by stripping down the coating system on the trailing edges of the primary struts down to the bare metal, via the use of hydraulic grinding tools. Once the welding procedure was completed, each trailing edge piece was allowed approximately two hours cooling time while covered with an asbestos blanket. Each weld seam was then examined with magnetic particle where it revealed no signs of irregularities deeming the vessel ready for regular operation. Another great benefit of the Alliance other than having a larger group of highly skilled technicians available world wide is that repair work in progress can start in one Alliance members area and be completed in another Alliance member's area. For example, recently a cruise ship called Miami Diver with concerns about the vessel's bowthruster. Miami Diver carried out the initial inspection, diagnosed the problem and presented a repair procedure and schedule that would work in conjunction with the vessel's schedule. The second part of the repair was carried out in L.A with Miami Divers L.A. office and finished in Vancouver and Alaska by the All-Sea office in Vancouver. What Does The Future Hold? The Subsea Solutions Alliance has recently developed equipment and procedures to carry out stern seal replacement underwater. To date several cruise vessels that have experienced stern steal problems have been able to avoid unscheduled dry-docking by utilizing the Alliance's underwater stern seal repair systems. The Subsea Solutions Alliance via Miami Diver is the authorized underwater seal repair facility for Blohm+Voss in Germany. In addition the Subsea Solutions Alliance performs underwater straightening of ship propellers world-wide as network members of Lips Propellers exclusive underwater repair licensee Subsea Propeller Inc Through Miami Diver the Subsea Solutions Alliance also plans to put maintenance contracts in place with several of the major cruise lines, and already has a commitment from Royal Caribbean to perform propeller polishings on their vessels every six months. According to Peters, the benefit of this simple maintenance task provides the owner with a significant amount of fuel savings, as it lessens the amount of fossil fuel burned by the vessel. The Subsea Solutions Alliance performs "check ups" on each cruise vessel simply by having its divers do a swim out report on major mechanicals such as thrusters, fins and propellers. "The dive out reports can prevent problems before they start," Peters said. "If we find something that we think could be a potential problem, our divers let the owners know how they can fix it." The Alliance is presently involved in underwater security inspection and is in conversation with several major cruise ship companies to provide underwater security inspection world-wide.


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Trico Marine Services, Inc., has taken delivery on the Northern Canyon, a 279-ft. UT 745 design platform supply vessel (PSV). The state-of-the-art vessel is designed to serve deepwater markets worldwide. Built in Norway, the Northern Canyon is equipped with a DP2 (dynamic positioning) system and is among the largest, most technologically advanced PSVs available in the industry. The vessel, which will be deployed initially in the North Sea, is quipped as a remotely operated vehicle vessel to perform subsea construction work globally. It has been awarded a three-year contract by Canyon-Offshore, Inc. Trico is scheduled to take delivery of a second 279-ft. PSV in September 2002. It also expects to take delivery of three new generation 155-ft. crewboats designed to transport personnel and oilfield products and supplies to offshore drilling and production platforms during the fourth quarter of 2002 and the first quarter of 2003.


Design contract awarded to Skipsteknisk
Skipsteknisk AS in Norway has been awarded a design contract for a new ROV survey vessel by Ostensjo Rederi AS in Haugesund, Norway. The contract is a result of a close co-operation between the two companies and the ship to be built is a new design, theST 253.

At 85m overall and with a breadth of 18m the ST 253 will be arranged for various types of surveys, including handling of ROVs, sub-sea installation work, and execution of geo-technical surveys. She will be equipped with a diesel electric propulsion system, dynamic positioning, helicopter deck, moonpool and a large heavy-lift crane on the aft deck.

Following commissioning early in 2003 she will be chartered to DeepOcean and will work for Norsk Hydro.

Kongsberg Simrad AS and ABB AS have entered a worldwide co-operation agreement on joint marketing, sales and technology development to marine and offshore vessels.
As part of this agreement there will be a transfer of ABB's business related to dynamic positioning to Kongsberg Simrad.
The two companies have established themselves as leading international suppliers with complementary products and systems and say they aim to become the leading vendor of vessel automation systems, dynamic positioning, electric power, propulsion, and thruster systems to marine and offshore vessels.




The SSPA Dynamic Position Predictor is a highly advanced navigation aid, to be used for continuous dynamic position prediction within 30-600 seconds. The bridge officers will be able to steer and control the ship in a safer and more accurate way, as the ships contour, presented in 3 different predicted positions ahead, is visualized on the ECDIS display.

The DPP is customised for each individual ship. An advanced mathematical model of the ships hydrodynamics is used for calculation of the ships predicted positions, based on the adjustable timestep selected by the officer. Output data from the dynamic predictor are given for T, 2T and 3T seconds ahead and comprise the ships course, speed and position.

The DPP can be delivered either as a software package, to be implemented in an integrated bridge system, or as a separate unit communicating with the bridge system by use of serial interface NMEA 0183.


ExxonMobil employs innovative strategy to accelerate deepwater developments
Exxon Mobil Corporation has announced that it will utilize an innovative, generic FPSO (floating, production, storage and offloading) concept to accelerate the production from new deepwater fields.

The FPSO vessel is designed as an Early Production System (EPS) and will allow the company to economically develop offshore resources with less development time between discovery and first production. Construction is underway for three EPS FPSOs for useoffshore West Africa. The first of these, the FPSO Falcon, is expected to leave Singapore in late summer 2002 and will be used for the Yoho development offshore Nigeria.

"The Early Production System offers a significant shortening of time between discovery and oil production by as much as two to four years," said Morris Foster, president, ExxonMobil Development Company.

"This strategy provides us greater flexibility for future offshore developments, and reduces costs by standardizing one design and utilizing nearly identical equipment from one vessel to another. By utilizing these general-purpose FPSOs to commercializeour significant portfolio of offshore developments, we are able to deploy a safe and environmentally sound production system long before custom-design facilities can be ready, allowing the resource to come on-stream in a shorter time frame."




North Sea rates pick up a little
Offshore Shipbrokers Limited (OSL) in Aberdeen reports that here were a large number of fixtures over the weekend of 29/30 June, with rates rising to around GBP8,000-9,000 for cargo duties and
GBP15,000 plus for rig moves.