Cosco Signed Contract for New Purpose-Built Installation Vessel

26-7-2010

Recently, COSCO Shipyard Group Co., Ltd. signed a contract valued at over US$130 million with a European ship owner A2SEA, to build a vessel specially designed for the purpose of installing offshore wind turbines.

The jack-up vessel, named SEA INSTALLER, will be designed to be able to carry 8 to 10 wind turbines at a time and to operate at water depths of up to 45 meters, making it well suited to work on upcoming offshore wind projects in the UK as well as other offshore wind markets.

"An increasing number of offshore wind projects in the near future will lead to even higher demands for installation vessels than already seen today. With a new state of the art vessel, A2SEA will be able to meet our customers' future demands and hold on to our position as the leading supplier of installation services," says Jens Frederik Hansen, CEO at A2SEA.

Reducing the installation time is an important factor in the ongoing work of industrializing the process to bring down the cost of constructing offshore wind farms. It has therefore been important to design SEA INSTALLER to be able to carry 8 to 10 wind turbines at a time, ensuring it has significantly more capacity than the vessels currently available in the market.

The SEA INSTALLER has dimensions of 132mx39mx5.8m, a speed of 12 knots, a crane capacity of 900tonnes and a loading capacity 5,000tonnes. Delivery of the vessel to the shipowner is expected to take place in the second half of 2012.

COSCO Shipyard Group Co. Ltd. press release