Page 38: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (May 1997)

SHIP REPAIR & CONVERSION 14,201-dwt, Kuwaiti-registered Al

Messilah was scheduled to leave the yard on April 15. The majority of the steel work for this conver- sion project was performed by

Klaipeda Shiprepair Yard,

Lithuania. According to market sources, there are another four such conversion projects being negotiated with this owner.

U.K. interest A&P Tyne has com- pleted, on schedule, the $25 mil- lion marine work for the $300 mil- lion Maersk Curlew project. The ship has now been transferred to

Amec's Tyneside facility for instal- lation of necessary production modules and for other offshore work. The contract was awarded to A&P Tyne by MAS Alliance, a joint venture between Amec

Process, SBM Inc. and Maersk

Contractors. Apart from the work carried out by A&P and Amec,

SBM is supplying the mooring tur- ret, which is being manufactured in Abu Dhabi. In turn, A&P has

GE Marine & Industrial Engines

Circle 312 on Reader Service Card subcontracted the sub-waterline work to fellow Tyneside ship repairer Tyne Tees Dockyard and some of the steel fabrication to

Wear Engineering, which is part of the same group as Tyne Tees. The 99,800-dwt Maersk Curlew, for- merly Maersk Dorset, has been in

A&P Tyne for the past six months, which has provided employment for 800 workers. Work has includ- ed 50 km of electrical cabling, 3.5 km of pipework and approximately 1,725 tons of steel work. A total of 100,000-sq.-m. of internal blasting and painting was carried out. The ship was moved from Tyne Tees

Dockyard to Amec, where it will stay until August when it sails for

Shell/Esso's Curlew field in the

U.K. sector of the North Sea for a production start-up during

October. Another U.K. yard involved in expansion is

Birkenhead's Cammell Laird, which is to invest $4.8 million on refurbishing another two derelict drydocks, trebling capacity for the yard's fast growing ship repair activities. With the docks being reopened, Cammell Laird is pro- viding more space for routine repair work, allowing sophisticat- ed conversions and large repair work to be completed in the 977.6 x 139.4-ft. (298 x 42.5-m) drydock currently in use. The docks should be operational by autumn, after being decomissioned for almost 15 years. Belfast's Harland & Wolff (H&W) has been awarded an off- shore rebuilding project involving semi-submersible drilling rig

Bideford Dolphin, its first such contract in many months. The rig arrived from Stavanger, Norway, in March, and docked in

H&W's main newbuilding dock.

Work involves major steelwork and general upgrades to incorpo- rate new piping and electrical sys- tems. Work also includes fabrica- tion and installation of a helideck support module, accommodation support frame, main deck and deck girders and installation of sponsons and RamRig drilling technology. Completion of the pro- ject is expected by the end of the third quarter of 1997. No contract price has been revealed, but it is understood that the project will account for 600,000 workhours.

When completed, the rig — which is owned by Bideford Marine,

London — will carry out drilling operations with Norwegian oil company Saga Petroleum.

Meanwhile, H&W's ship repair division is currently completing

Maritime Reporter/Engineering News