Page 20: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (November 2010)

20 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News

NEWS

Noble Bully II Drill Tower

On September 27, 2010, the drill tower for the Noble Bully II drill ship left the Huisman quay in Schiedam heading for the Keppel Shipyard in

Singapore, where it was expected to arrive early November. Huisman, the Dutch–based specialist in heavy lifting, pipelay and drilling equip- ment, designed and manufactured the drilling tower and related cranes, pipe, riser and BOP han- dling equipment. Apart from the drilling tower, Huisman also deliv- ered all equipment for the handling of drill pipe, casings, marine risers, subsea and surface BOPs and X- mas trees, the riser tensioning sys- tem, both deck cranes and both drillers cabins. With the equipment come all power systems as well as an integrated control system which also controls third party equipment.

This equipment has previously been shipped to Keppel Shipyard in Sin- gapore.

The fleet of tankers operated by the U.S.

Navy's Military Sealift Command is being reconfigured to meet fuel requirements in support of U.S. forces worldwide. This seagoing force of government-owned and

U.S.-flagged chartered ships is acquiring a new chartered ship, MT Empire State, as two government-owned ships complete their service to the command.

The newly built, U.S.-flagged Empire

State came under charter to MSC for up to five years today and will operate world- wide carrying refined petroleum products for DOD, primarily between commercial refineries and DOD storage and distribu- tion facilities. Empire State is owned and operated by a private shipping company under contract to MSC. Built at General

Dynamics, NASSCO in San Diego, the double-hulled Empire State is 600 feet long and has a cargo-carrying capacity of approximately 331,000 barrels. The ship's construction was completed in July 2010, at which time Empire State went to work for MSC under a short-term charter. A sec- ond State-class tanker is currently under construction at NASSCO and is expected to come under charter to MSC in early 2011.

Two of MSC's four government-owned tankers transferred out of service Oct. 1.

USNS Paul Buck and USNS Samuel L.

Cobb began their service to MSC in the mid 1980s, along with three other new- construction T-5 tankers that came under long-term charter to the command in 1985 and 1986. In 2003, MSC purchased four of those ships - Buck, Cobb, USNS Lawrence

H. Gianella and USNS Richard G.

Matthiesen. Since then, these ships have served as the core of MSC's tanker fleet along with an MSC-chartered shallow- draft tanker. "Our T-5 tankers have served us well for the past 25 years, and as they approach the end of their service lives, the

State-class ships will allow us to continue to fulfill our requirements to transport fuel for the Defense Logistics Agency - En- ergy," said John Joerger, MSC's tanker project officer. DLA Energy procures and manages fuel for all of DOD.

MSC Reconfigures Tanker Fleet