Page 19: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (May 2024)

SHUTTLE TRANSPORT & RESUPPLY SHIP s companies approach the exploitation phase of stays on the mine site location. This necessitates a shuttle type

Deep Sea Mining, one critical factor is the trans- of transporter to transfer harvested nodules to the designated portation of mineral ores from the mine site loca- of? oading site. These operations would be super? cially analo-

A tion to onshore re? neries gous the use of shuttle (oil) tankers of? oading FPSOs in the

While this may appear to be a relatively simple step, involv- oil and gas industry.

ing conventional bulk ore carriers and standard procedures, While it might seem feasible to simply modify a stan- the nuances and practical limits of operating in the deep ocean dard bulk carrier for this purpose, this type of shuttle trans- mean that this step becomes increasingly complex and chal- porter requires signi? cant thought on the part of designers lenging. This article will explore the STARS concept, the and operators around ef? ciency and regulatory compliance. likely regulatory requirements, and the complexities of this These additional requirements mean that the industry re- new vessel type. gards them as a distinctly different type of vessel, and they

Unfortunately, many stakeholders have overlooked the have acquired the acronym STARS (Shuttle Transport And importance of this link in the production process, and chal- Resupply Ship) lenges around shipyard availability and lead times mean that the timing of delivery of STARS vessels is critical to the STARS Considerations success of projects. In general, a STARS vessel will likely be expected to ful? ll four key tasks:

STARS Concept • Transfer of nodules from the PSV

Most proposals for deep sea mining involve using a large • Transport of those nodules to the processing facility

Production Support Vessel (PSV) to operate the mining equip- • Transport of equipment, fuel and provisions to the PSV ment (including Harvester, RALS, surface separators etc) that • Transfer of personnel to and from the PSV per crew rotas

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