Page 104: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (November 1998)
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SHIP REPAIR & CONVERSION
Lisnave Continues To Set Trends
By Alan Thorpe, International Editor
Despite the intended reorganiza- tion of Lisnave, which will eventu- ally lead to the closure of the large
Margueira shipyard near Lisbon, business at Lisnave has continued to set trends. The company has won contracts from shipowners located in 26 different countries —
Norway, U.K. and U.S. being the most dominant — and the
Margueira yard is boasting in excess of 90 percent drydock occu- pancy so far this year.
The most significant contract still at the yard involves the 137,159- dwt storage unit Serepca 1. Owned by Elf Exploration (Cameroon), part of Elf Aquataine, she is at the yard for drydocking, which com- prises 800 tons of steel renewal and general repairs. She arrived at the yard during mid-May after being towed from Cameroon to
Lisnave and is expected to leave during early-October 1998.
Previous to the ship docking at
Lisnave, yard workers carried out voyage repairs before she entered drydock.
The aim of this repair operation is to extend Serepca Vs life as a storage vessel for an additional seven years. With regards to the repair work, it was originally esti- mated that some 40 tons of steel was needed to be replaced in the ballast tanks, but on further inspection, the owners and classifi- cation society decided to renew 800 tons in the cargo tanks. Lisnave carried out internal tank cleaning, followed by 17-day de-slopping and gas-freeing operations at a clean- ing station. This change in repair work extended the vessel's visit at
Lisnave from 34 days to approxi- mately five months. The vessel was converted to a FPSO 14-years ago and since then has been operating off the west coast of Africa for Elf.
Lisnave's Mitrena yard is presently dedicated to offshore platform repairs and conversion of bulk carriers into drilling vessels for Houston-based offshore compa- ny Falcon Drilling. These conver- sions include the Peregrine VI and the Peregrine VIII, which will be able to drill to depths of 10,500 ft. (3,200 m). This yard is also carry- ing out a conversion of a drilling platform, the PX, for Brazilian oil major Petrobras, doubling the ves- sel's deep drilling capacity from 1,970 ft. (600 m) to 3,937 ft. (1,200 m).
Wilton Fijenoord Takeover
Imminent
There have been some further developments with the proposed takeover of the Wilton Fijenoord (WF) repair facility in Schiedam.
Both yards' workers councils are expected to agree terms which includes a promise from YVC that there will be no redundancies at the time of the amalgamation, which is expected to take place during the first half of 1999. There are currently 145 workers employed at YVC's Bolnes shiprepair yard and a further 275 at WF. RDM Technology Holding
The CoastaI Golden, which is being converted to a drillship for Falcon Drilling at Lisnave's Mitrena
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BV acquired the shares of Wilton
Fijenoord Holdings BV earlier this year and will retain ownership of
Verolme Botlek and the naval part of WF, which includes a fairly busy spares and support contract involving submarines built at WF for the Taiwanese Navy. RDM is also expected to sell the panamax floating dock, which is currently part of the WF shipyard. When the move by YVC Bolnes to WF takes place, there will be a total of six docks (three graving and three floating) involved, which, accord- ing to YVC is too much and there- fore another floating dock is likely to be placed on the sale and pur- chase market. The WF facility will then carry on in a smaller scale fol- lowing the sale of some of the site to industrial interests in the shiprepair industry, with a ship- building capability in the 40,000 dwt capacity covered dock. The new operating name for the yard will be Rotterdam United
Shipyards. The shipbuilding side of YVC's activities is not likely to move until after the year 2001.
Lloyd Werft Bremerhaven,
Germany, has continued its domi- nance of the cruise market by win- ning a $23.2 million contract from
Finland's Birka Line, for the con- version of the 21,484 grt passenger
RoRo Birka Princess. The contract, which will see the yard fully occu- pied until the end of the first quar- ter of 1999, will primarily involve bringing the vessel up to current environmental standards.
Additions include a waste gas puri- fying installment for the engines, as well as a fire-extinguishing sys- tem. The conversion side of the contract will see the yard extend one deck and construct a panora- ma lounge extending over two decks. A total of 62 new passenger cabins will be built, bringing the total to 559 cabins (a total of 1,100 passengers). A new restaurant will also be included.
FPSO Conversion Proceeds In
Singapore
The latest stage in the construc- tion of the FPSO for the Triton
Field has taken place with the
Triton 1 arriving in Singapore for further modification and installa- tion work prior to sailing for the
U.K. The Triton 1, a 105,000 dwt, 624,000 barrels capacity unit, was constructed by South Korea's
Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) under a contract originally signed 104 Maritime Reporter/Engineering News
