Page 26: of Marine News Magazine (October 2022)

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MN

Feature

Offshore Wind struction giant Boskalis to assist with transport, via U.S. at the Philly Shipyard, will install rocks to protect and sta- tugs and barges, and installation (utilizing Jones Act com- bilize monopile foundations, electrical substructures and pliant PSVs) of three offshore substations and the mono- export cables, starting with the Empire Wind I array in the piles which will support turbines. mid-2020s and then continue with Empire Wind II. Prior

Equinor and BP, developing the Empire Wind project to the installation of foundations, Van Oord will mobilize (in the New York Bight) turned to Maersk Supply Service its fallpipe vessel, Stornes, to install scour protection rock. in March 2022, ordering an WTIV to be built in Singa- Smaller CTVs will be provide a stream of business for pore at Sembcorp Marine. In July, 2022, Maersk said that U.S. yards with a history of building aluminum passenger it would be ordering a second WTIV, to serve the partners’

Beacon Wind project (in waters near Nantucket). Maersk pegs the delivery date as 2025. The tugs and barges, to be ABS-classed, would be provided by an offshore wind division of Kirby Corporation, operating out of a termi- nal in Brooklyn, N.Y. (the South Brooklyn Marine Termi- nal, or SBMT, which- similar to the case in Virginia, had handled conventional cargo at one time). According to a

Kirby announcement, “Kirby will be investing in two new

ABS-classed feeder barge and diesel-electric hybrid tug- boat units which will be constructed in U.S. shipyards for a total combined cost of between $80 million to $100 mil- lion. Each feeder barge will have the capacity to transport next-generation turbines of 15 MW and higher as turbine technology advances.” Delivery of the diesel fueled tugs, with the capability to burn unspeci? ed “alternative fuels”, is set for late 2025/early 2026, according to Kirby.

Construction began in March 2022, on an Edison

Chouest SOV, to be named Eco Edison, to be delivered in 2024 for work on the Eversource/Ørsted offshore wind farms in New England waters. Its diesel electric con? gu- ration will utilize Voith Schneider Propellers, powered by

Caterpillar generators.

Empire Wind will also be seeing a Jones Act compliant

SOV, to be chartered for ten years in a deal with Edison

Chouest. Equinor (a partner with BP), in a release, said: “The plug-in hybrid vessel will be the ? rst in the US ca- pable of sailing on battery power for portions of the route.

The SOV will sail into the port of SBMT on battery pow- er, recharge the battery using shore power and sail out of

New York Harbor.”

Equinor and BP have chosen a partnership of Great

Lakes Dredge & Dock Corp. (GLDD, with a Houston headquarters) and Netherlands-based Van Oord to perform the subsea rock installation work for the Empire Wind.

Great Lakes has contracted the ? rst Jones Act-compliant subsea rock installation vessel (with capability to run on biofuel, with auxiliary battery power). The vessel, priced at just under $200 million and currently under construction 26 | MN October 2022