Vessels under 24 metres operating in the Energy Sector – an overview
Mike Proudlove MIIMS has worked as a workboat and yacht surveyor in the USA and Europe since 2000. Since 2012, Mike has worked in the wind farm sector, both as a crew transfer vessel master for Seacat Services and more recently as Operations Manager for Offshore Turbine Services. Mike has also been involved in developing surveyor education programmes with the IIMS and MITEC Boatbuilding College, including the BTEC HND in Marine Surveying.
While the worldwide economy, and particularly shipping and marine leisure markets, struggled between 2008 and 2017, the offshore wind farm sector in the UK and northern Europe experienced an enormous expansion and the sector gained a hold in both political and marine civil engineering terms. From 2011 to 2014 the UK wind energy industry boomed with the construction of the high profile London Array and Gwynt y Môr Offshore Wind Farms, as well as other significant projects off Grimsby and Barrow-in-Furness. Late 2015 and 2016 tested a lot of investors and vessel operators’ mettle, but the long-term forecast remained good and the market
improved again in 2017 and continues to look strong for the next ten to twenty years. With many more huge projects about to start, and most wind farms having a planned working-life of twenty-five years, there is reason for continued optimism.
From a marine surveyor’s perspective, the wind farm industry is best viewed as simply a new component of the much larger and long established, energy sector. This sector includes the obvious and visible oil and gas industry, but also the hidden pipeline and cable infrastructure and massive civil engineering projects such as Hinkley Point C. Many Class
Master P Photo courtesy of Offshore Turbine Services
BY MIKE PROUDLOVE MIIMS Operations Manager,
Offshore Turbine Services
surveyors will have completed surveys and inspections of cable laying and trenching vessels that work across the whole energy sector and the wind farm industry probably doesn’t register as a significantly different business to those vessel operators and surveyors, although, with the recent downturn in the oil and gas industry, the wind industry has provided some welcome opportunities and alternatives to maintain fleets and workforces.
In the wind farm industry, the two, headline vessel types that have attracted attention in the last five years are the specialised, installation jack-ups and the high speed, crew transfer vessels (CTV). Both vessel types have absorbed large amounts of development time and new financing. Over the next few years, as wind farms are built further offshore, the walk- to-work (W2W) service operation vessels (SOV) will probably attract attention as the new wunderkinds. However, while exciting new vessel types have emerged which are dedicated to building and maintaining wind farms, there are also many more conventional dredgers, tugs, workboats, multi-cats, barges and even RIBs involved in the construction and maintenance of offshore wind farms. The sheer number of operators, vessels and vessel types involved in the industry provides opportunities for surveyors from all types of backgrounds.
The Report • September 2017 • Issue 81 | 39
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