Page 28: of Offshore Engineer Magazine (Sep/Oct 2022)

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FEATURE VESSELS bines. The ship-shaped dynamically positioned vessel will be about 230 meters long by about 60 meters wide, with accommodations for 160 people on board and equipped with a 6,000-ton Huisman crane.

Among other key characteristics, the vessel will be UK- fagged, it will be “mission fexible” with a number of lay- out options, it will be rated for high sea states (HS 3), and it will run on a cleaner burning fuel, likely dual fuel diesel with low-carbon green methanol to start.

“[This] is very important to us,” Bryce said. “The world’s going green, but also IMO 2050 means that 50% of the world’s vessels must be zero emissions by 2050. And we’ve got all kinds of other legislation coming in, European di- rectives and some British Maritime Act, et cetera, saying we want zero emissions.”

Bryce said Zero-C chose methanol after weighing a range of options and determining ammonia—the com- pany’s frst fuel choice—carried too much risk as too new an option, and that engine advancements would not meet timeline targets. “We came to the conclusion that the engines probably wouldn’t be ready [in time].

And also, when we were taking the company to market management. “It’s all about seamlessly delivering a com- saying that’s a brand new company, brand new manage- plicated project and bringing in the best people and also a ment team, brand new concept, has a brand new fuel, clever way of paying for this. It’s about mitigating the risk we’re probably spinning too many plates for investors,” and ensuring seamless delivery.”

Bryce said. “We decided to park the ammonia, reluc- Bryce said Zero-C’s potential customers fall into two tantly. We can still design our vessels to call them am- categories: offshore wind developers and transport and in- monia-ready, which means in the future there’s suffcient stallation (T&I) contractors. “We’ve had a lot of conversa- space and pipe work.” tions with many of each. And we’ve gotten to the point

The result is a vessel that Bryce said is “literally the best when we have been talking about moving forward with pick, frst choice in the entire world feet of purpose-built commitments in writing,” Bryce said. “They want to see [FIVs]. . . This vessel will be utilized 365 days a year, ev- us build, but we want to see them commit to us, help us ery year that it’s in play. And the day rate squeeze is about to allow us to build. The issue at the moment is the equity to come, and it’s going to be considerable because there’s market is just literally being wiped out since Q2.” no supply.” Bryce said Zero-C Offshore doesn’t currently qualify for

Zero-C created the pre-concept design in-house before fnancial support from the Scottish government, but it has going to Ulstein for help with the concept design. Work- received assistance in other ways. “The Scottish govern- ing with Clarksons Platou, Zero-C took the design to ment has said, ‘Look, we will support you. We’ll partner shipyards in China, Singapore, South Korea and the UK you with customer meetings. We’ll come to the investor for price quotations. “We got some very, very competitive meetings. We will introduce you to our network. We will pricing from Asia. What comes next is we secure funding do everything we can, other than give you funding, until for the vessels and then we engage with Ulstein again for we can give you funding when you qualify.’” the basic design,” Bryce said. The company has also been liaising with the British gov-

Zero-C has a memorandum of understanding (MOU) ernment for possible fnancial assistance. “They’re much with Ocean Services—a Norwegian company formally bigger than the Scottish government. And they’ve got big- called North Sea Rigs, with a lot of experience managing ger pockets, and they can do things in different ways,” complex build projects in Asia—for construction project Bryce said. The company is in talks with the UK Infra- 28 OFFSHORE ENGINEER OEDIGITAL.COM