Page 27: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (February 2022)

U.S. OFFSHORE WIND will potentially hold up to seven new offshore lease sales by fer vessels (CTVs). Both are used in the long-term operations 2025. The ? rst auction consists of six New York Bight leases. and maintenance phase of a wind farm and will need to be

Other leasing will be held for sites in the North and South Jones Act compliant. Till now one SOV has been announced

Atlantic, the Paci? c and the Gulf of Mexico. This sets a clear as under construction – although the indications are that others foundation for long-term offshore wind activity in the U.S. are in the pipeline. In the CTV segment, three vessels, owned

The third piece of the jigsaw is linked to state procure- by Atlantic Wind Transfers and WindServe, are already op- ments and new federal leasing requirements– in simple erating on the Block Island wind farm and the Coastal Vir- terms developers must commit to signi? cant supply chain ginia Demonstration project. Five CTV awards have been an- infrastructure investment and make good on these commit- nounced recently awarded to two yards -- Blount Boats and ments. As a result, developers are executing investments in Gladding Hearn shipbuilding. Despite the building activity, offshore wind manufacturing and port infrastructure that the domestic supply and SOVs and CTVs is signi? cantly be- were agreed as part of the capacity awards with the states. low our forecast for demand.

Further, the current New York Bight federal leasing contains

Floating Wind Advances domestic supply chain development incentives aligned to the supply chain development activities of New York and Many eyes are attracted to the potential of California’s

New Jersey. In its March 2021 statement, the White House offshore ? oating wind potential, with BOEM expected to targeted “one to two new U.S. factories for each major wind- auction two areas for development in 2022. But four ? oat- farm component including wind turbine nacelles, blades, ing wind projects are already currently being progressed in towers, foundations, and subsea cables”. At the time this the Atlantic and Paci? c – three in state waters and two in seemed somewhat optimistic, yet through state procurement Federal waters.

requirements multiple key component factories are now be- Floating wind requires a different supply chain approach ing built and will provide ongoing opportunities to the do- to the bottom-? xed of the current northeast and Mid-Atlan- mestic supply chain. tic pipeline.

First moves are being made on port infrastructure, but little movement has been made on the Jones Act vessels required

One piece of the jigsaw is missing – to install ? oating wind projects – supply of the asset classes

Jones Act Vessels

In the March 2021 White House statement on offshore required in limited presenting a construction opportunity for domestic yards. wind, one ambition was to achieve “the construction of 4 to 6 specialized turbine installation vessels in U.S. shipyards, each representing an investment between $250 and $500 million.”

Achievement of this goal is currently behind plan.

Till now only one Jones Act wind turbine installation vessel has been committed and is under construction – owned by Do- minion Energy and under construction at Keppel Brownsville.

Without additional domestic supply, developers will need to secure installation vessels from the international market – as

Vineyard Wind has done for its project. However, although in- ternational supply of wind turbine installation vessels is grow-

Watch the interview with Phil Lewis @ ing, supply will be stretched in the global market around the bit.ly/3GauEPp middle of the decade – at the same time U.S. offshore wind installation activity is expected to peak.

Recently, Great Lakes Dredge & Docks announced that it is moving ahead with the construction of the ? rst Jones Act compliant wind farm scour protection/rock installation vessel.

For more information about the U.S. Offshore Wind

The Ulstein designed vessel is being built at Philly Shipyards

Market Forecast, please visit www.intelatus.com or and is due to be delivered in late 2024. Great Lakes Dredge & contact Michael Kozlowski at +1 561-733-2477or

Dock and Philly Shipyard have agreed an option for a second

Philip Lewis at +44 203-966-2492 vessel to be declared at a later date.

One would expect there to be a signi? cant amount of con- struction of service operations vessels (SOVs) and crew trans- www.marinelink.com 27

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