At 1253 feet (382m) in length, and 384 feet (117m) at the beam, this massive ship will have a footprint twice as large as the Emma Maersk.  Eight diesel generators will provide 95MW of power to 12 azimuth-mounted thrusters and for all operational needs.

This ship was uniquely designed with the ability to deconstruct aging offshore oil production structures, particularly those found in the North Sea, as well as for high capacity pipelay operations.

USS Antietam and the USS Carl Vinson battlegroup (US Navy photo)

On the bow of the Pieter Schelte is a unique system that allows her to latch on to a topsides structure and conduct a 48,000 ton maximum lift to separate this structure from the supports below that reach down to the sea floor.  To put this in perspective, 48,000 tons is about 5 times as heavy as a Ticonderoga-class Cruiser.

Once the topsides removal is complete, the ship will then turn 180 degrees and a powerful array of high capacity cantilever cranes will lift the steel “jacket” truss off the bottom and lay it flat on the aft deck.  This system will have the capacity to lift even the largest steel structures in the North Sea, the location of her primary mission once commissioned in 2013.

As a dynamically-positioned pipelay vessel, the Pieter Schelte will have a 2,000 ton tension capacity, twice that of the Allseas Solitaire, the current world record holder for pipelay capacity.  She will have the capacity to lay concrete-coated steel trunklines nearly 6 feet in diameter from her stern.

Video Flyby Of The Pieter Schelte

Click here to view the embedded video.

Decommissioning An Oil Platform

Pieter Schelte Decommissioning of an oil rig

For more videos of the Pieter Schelte visit Allseas’ movie gallery. To view other offshore behemoths visit gCaptain’s Heavy Lift section.

FJELL transports a jackup rig for Saipem, image courtesy Fairstar Heavy Transport N.V.

Fairstar Heavy Transport N.V. (FAIR) has been awarded a contract by Hercules Offshore (NASDAQ:HERO) to transport the jack-up drilling rig Hercules 185 from Pascagoula, Mississippi to West Africa in the First Quarter of 2012 on board Fairstar’s open stern, semi-submersible vessel FJELL.  The 185 had been transported from Gabon to Pascagoula by Fairstar earlier this year after it had sustained damage off Gabon.

The contract value of this transport is USD $2.6 million.

The FJELL is currently underway to Malta where it will load the Northern Offshore rig ENERGY EXERTER in the Grand Harbour in January. After discharging the ENERGY EXERTER in Northern Europe, FJELL will sail to the Gulf of Mexico to load the Hercules 185.

Chris Muilwijk, Team Leader of Fairstar’s Client Services Group stated:

“Fairstar is looking forward to work again with Jim Stevens of High Seas Maritime Services and the operations team at Hercules Offshore. The Hercules 185 was safely transported by the FJELL to Pascagoula earlier this year and our crew on board the FJELL is committed to returning the rig to West Africa in 2012 safely and securely.”

Philip Adkins, Fairstar’s CEO has updated Fairstar’s fleet utilization for 2012, stating: “Fleet utilization for 2012 continues to improve. FJORD will discharge the Oando rig RESPECT, sail to Angola to load the CLOV FPSO components for DSME and then commence its multi-voyage contract for Gorgon. FJELL is now fully booked for the First Quarter of 2012. The FJELL will still be available for work in Alaska in April through September under the terms of our agreement to transport the Agrium fertilizer plant modules to Nigeria. However, in the event we do not receive the first contract installment for FJELL in February, we intend to pursue other transportation options for the FJELL in that period. In October, FJELL will commence its multi-voyage contract for Gorgon, joining FJORD and FORTE on a series of voyages from Northern Asia to Barrow Island, Australia.”

Hercules was unavailable for comment.

Part 1 of an exclusive gCaptain Interview with Intermarine’s CEO, Andre Grikitis, and CFO, Michael Dumas.

By Jack Mylott, Partner, Flagship Management

JM: Andre, Michael, thank you for joining us today.  Let’s kick this off with an overview of Intermarine and your operations. 

AG:  We are the largest break-bulk project cargo carrier based in the US.  Our headquarters are in New Orleans, and our largest office is in Houston where the majority of our clients are in a radius of 100 miles.  We have a 90-acre industrial terminal in Houston, which is the busiest project cargo terminal in the United States.  At that facility, we have rail siding, truck delivery, barge docks, and mobile cranes.  From there we operate about 250 voyages per year, primarily within the Americas and Latin America.

Venezuela, Trinidad, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Suriname, Guyana, Argentina, Brazil are our core and we have a high frequency of sailings and strong market share in all of those trades.  We carry break bulk, project and heavy lift cargo, and we do have some container capability for projects.

Image courtesy Intermarine

Our core fleet has 3 generations of vessels.  Our first series were 2×200 for a combined of 400-ton lifting capacity.  Four of those now are US-flagged, followed by another similar ship that was only really upgraded and tweaked to a 2×250… there are 6 of those.

Now the larger version, a new class we dubbed the F-class, has been specially configured for being able to carry very large and over-dimensional pieces, and has no line-of-sight issues.  These vessels have a capacity of 2×400-ton cranes for an 800-ton lifting capacity.  They are the largest in our fleet and are 14k DWT.   One of them is operating under the US-flagged fleet for a total of five US-flagged vessels.

The EPC companies [Engineering, Procurement, and Construction], Oil, Gas, Mining are the industries where a majority of our clients are operating in.  We have contracts with many of the suppliers to these industries, and as projects are built, we supply the infrastructure.

We do the same thing on a global basis.

We traded actively in the trans-Pacific trades to Asia and we’ve had services on an intra-Asia basis from north Asia (Japan, Korea, China) into India and the Persian Gulf region.  We trade with both Foreign-flagged and US-flagged assets and have a high concentration of heavy lift vessels between 400 and 800-ton lifting capacity.

The main supply of cargoes for this comes from Ex-Im Bank-financed lending to buyers of US goods.

I think it’s well known that the president has established a goal of doubling US exports in his inauguration speech.  Ex-Im, in fact, has turbo-charged its lending, which I think has been particularly successful in the current environment.  They have more than doubled their lending over the last two years.

They continue to grow, and we’ve grown with them.

I think from the point of view of a successful government program, the bank doesn’t cost taxpayers anything, produces jobs, manufacturing jobs, and jobs on the waterfront that go with moving the cargo.  When you consider that we’ve more than doubled our fleet with the expansion of Ex-Im, there is a direct relationship there, and there are good-paying seagoing jobs associated with this program as well.

From a point of view of anybody I think reading an article of what has been working, and frankly what could use more turbo-charging, in my opinion, Ex-Im Bank lending has been extremely successful.  My view is that program should be expanded.  Regrettably, the current Chairman, Fred Hochberg, who’s been very proactive and engaging, has not been able to add sufficient staff to promote the lending to the level that I think they could.  Simply because, like other government agencies, he’s constrained by budget issues.

Our view is that the government should be prudent and somehow working out exceptions to some of these because this is certainly a non-partisan viewpoint about what works and exactly what the country needs.  That is a very important part of what we see as a potential growth area for our economy and our business.

Our services are essentially customized to fit the needs of our clients.  Meaning while we’re consistent in our sailings, the same ship does not sail the same route, or call on the same ports on a consistent basis.  We are tailoring and customizing voyages to optimize client’s needs.  The focus of our business is not about the hardware.  Essentially, while we obviously need and maintain a core fleet of vessels, and we are normally operating 25 plus vessels at any given time, our business is a service business and what we aim to do is to really satisfy the needs of clients and make ourselves useful to their transportation needs.  The fact we’ve been able to provide that sort of expertise and consistency over time has led to what I would call a very strong brand.

What we provide is certainty and reliability in a business that of course has a lot of moving parts, and for many of the projects that our clients are involved in, the lowest cost in transportation does not necessarily end up being the best value.

The value of projects getting up and running on time, or keeping running, is much more important than some difference in freight.  What we try to do is manage our schedules to ensure that we are delivering what we promised, and I think that having done so consistently has led to a high degree of client retention.

And it’s not just A-to-B transport…

We provide other services as required.  What’s important to our clients, among other things, is that they also want timely, accurate documentation because everything may go very well, but if they can’t bank their document on time, then people are obviously not going to be happy.  Everybody in our company is involved in the cargo life cycle in some way.

We maintain a very strong corporate culture which I think is evident to the clients, and considering the kind of turmoil that the shipping markets are often in, I think that stability, consistency, and reliability are really the important ingredients for us to continue to grow and develop our business further.

JM: You touched on one or two things as far as what is sparking some of the growth such as the Ex-Im Bank financing.  What are the key factors that are driving the requirements for the services you’re offering?

AG:  On a macro basis, there are a few things.  Keep in mind that the Ex-Im are cargoes only emanating out of the US.  Clearly multi-nationals today operate a lot differently than they did.  Where previously, a particular supplier of cargo would be quoting a cargo out of one area, today, the multi-nationals may quote that product out of 3 separate locations.  You may be quoting a cargo into someplace in Brazil, and it may be produced in Europe, the US, India, or China.

So, the complexity of our business has clearly expanded over time, and there are a number of factors that influence that.  The macro picture on how companies are doing business is a big part of that.  Ex-Im is an important US initiative, if you will, but in terms of overall cargo movement on a global scale, it’s certainly not that large.  You’re talking about a small number of vessels being occupied with Ex-Im, the US fleet of course is not large, shipping is not a valued industry in the United States.  It’s clearly not been in the forefront really on any level, so it makes our business more complicated to communicate and to have others understand the value of it.

On a global basis, you’re talking about the macro picture, where infrastructure development continues in more places than it’s ever taken hold before.  Whereas maybe 20 or 30 years ago, you would have the oil patch building in the Persian Gulf, and perhaps West Africa, but today, you have projects really all over the world as all the Asian countries continue to build infrastructure.  Certainly it’s ramped up in the Americas on a continuous basis as well.  West Africa has expanded, so there is more activity on a much larger scale as the world industrializes.  Of course, to industrialize, it comes back to the raw materials required and you see the booming economies of places like Brazil and Australia who are involved in the producing commodities required for manufacturing the materials required for further industrial growth.

Again, I think the industrialization on a worldwide basis is requiring more carriage of specialized cargoes and I think that’s driven the multi-purpose, heavy lift sector over the past decade.

Please check back in with us soon for Part 2 of this interview…

The new semi-submersible is currently under construction at China Merchants Yard in Shenzhen and is due for delivery by the end of March 2012. At 222 metres in length and deadweight of 53,500 tonnes, the vessel will be capable of carrying loads of up to 50,000 tonnes.

Dockwise said it will operate the vessel under a management contract in close cooperation with COOEC as part of the Dockwise fleet of semi submersible vessels. Dockwise will be responsible for marketing the vessel and will also be training the permanent crew.

Speaking at the signing ceremony, at the the Marintec convention in Shanghai, Andre Goedee, Chief Executive, Dockwise, said:

“This is an innovative arrangement which brings distinct benefits for both COOEC and Dockwise. COOEC will engage the world’s leading heavy marine transport firm to secure profitable cargoes for their vessel and Dockwise gains access to further, premium, new-build resource for our own clients as demand in the sector moves into rapid growth,” said Andre Goedee, Chief Executive of Dockwise while at the Marintec convention in Shanghai.  “COOEC’s vessel will complement our own fleet capacity during a phase of accelerated offshore project installation and development.”

Photo: Dockwise Yacht Transport's YACHT EXPRESS

Heavy-lift operator Dockwise today announced plans to sell off its yacht transport arm, Dockwise Yacht Transport (DYT), to focus on its core Heavy Marine Transport (HMT), Transport and Installation (T&I) and Logistical Management activities.  Dockwise said in a statement today that will unload the wholly-owned subsidiary to Coby Enterprises Corp in a cash deal that will be completed sometime in the next quarter.

DYT owns three dedicated vessels; Super Servant 3, Super Servant 4 and Yacht Express offering both premium float-on / float-off and lift-on / lift-off yacht transportation services, and the company has long operated independently from Dockwise with little overlap.

“Dockwise is now focused on the Oil & Gas Industry as a dedicated provider of transportation and installation services,” said Andre Goedee, Chief Executive of Dockwise Ltd. “Today’s announcement will allow management within the business to focus exclusively on this task and to reallocate capital to supporting the development of our world-leading business.”

New York-based Coby Enterprises is a marine solutions, transportation and logistics company providing services in domestic and international markets.

“We are excited to get involved in this dynamic and interesting niche in marine transportation,” said Coby CEO, Steven Byle. “DYT clients can look forward to uninterrupted service in the short term, and improved and expanded services as we go forward. The DYT team and vessels crews will stay in place, and there will be no change in routes or schedules. Moving toward the future, however, our plans include an immediate program for renewal and upgrade of the yacht carrier fleet. And we further intend to add new routes and services for our clients in the years to come.”

An illustration of the newbuild Dockwise Vanguard courtesy Dockwise

Life is good when you can tranport over 100,000 metric tons.

Heavy lift operator Dockwise today announced that its new-build “Type-0″ super vessel, Dockwise Vanguard, has been booked for its second project, transporting an FPSO from Korea to Norway.  Directly following the transportation of the Jack & St. Malo platform to the Gulf of Mexico in 2013, the Dockwise Vanguard will return to its roots at Hyundai Heavy Industries in South Korea to pick up the Goliat FPSO and transport it to the northern coast of Norway.

“The Vanguard is already adding unique capacity and new flexibility to the Dockwise fleet,” said Dockwise CEO, Andre Goedee.  “This is of particular value for clients with the most challenging assignments. In case of today’s announcement we created an opportunity for the client to optimize the project execution schedule with a flexible and robust solution for the transportation of the Goliat FPSO from Korea to Europe. We consider this another strong endorsement of Dockwise’s decision to invest in a major new-build asset ahead of the surge in demand for Transport & Installation projects in the next decade.”

The Dockwise Vanguard is expected to be delivered in late 2012 from Hyundai Heavy Industries.

The Goliat FPSO will be operated by Eni for oil production of the Goliat field located offshore Northern Norway in sub-arctic conditions. The platform is designed as a fully integrated and enclosed winterized floating production platform (FPSO).

The BBC Amber, delivered in early September, is the first of 14 newbuilds for BBC Chartering with a lifting capacity of 800mt.

BBC Chartering is launching a new division exclusively for moving high-end heavy lift cargo.  The announcement comes after a hat trick of heavy lift newbuilds were delivered to BBC this year increasing the companies lifting capacity from 500mt to 800mt.

BBC Chartering says it will use its service hubs in Leer, Singapore and Houston to set up the new division that looks to include 22 vessels specific to the segment by the end of 2013.

BBC Chartering’s recent deliveries, heavy lift vessels BBC Everest, BBC Fuji, and BBC Amber are part of an extensive fleet modernization and renewal program plan for BBC Chartering.  The “new wave”, as it is called, includes the construction of 14 heavy lift vessels with 800mt lifting capacity to commence service over the next two years.  The company is also building eight additional heavy lifters with a lifting capacity up to 700mt.

Svend Anderson, Managing Director of BBC Chartering talks of this kind of high end, specialty cargo that the new division will focus on: “We are aware of the fact, that operating and marketing of vessels capacity is not sufficient if we strive for a leading role in this high end cargo market. Many projects in this range follow a different sales cycle and delivery process if compared to our traditional business, especially regarding the required transport engineering.”

“We can clearly see the benefits of a project oriented organization for these types of cargo,” he added.

BBC Chartering says it has hired Roberto Frigeni to run the new division.

MAERSK ILLINOIS, one of the two vessels which will be operated in the Maersk-Rickmers partnership under US flag. Photo via Rickmers-Linie

Maersk Line, Limited and Rickmers-Linie this week announced a joint venture to provide U.S. customers with heavy-lift breakbulk and project cargo shipping using two newly-built multi-purpose ships to be operated under the U.S. flag.

The partnership, which will operate as Maersk-Rickmers U.S. Flag Project Carrier or Maersk-Rickmers for short, will provide services to customers seeking U.S.-flagged heavy-lift multipurpose vessels using the new 19,000 DWT Maersk Illinois and Maersk Texas, each with a combined maximum lift of 480 metric tons.  The vessels will provide twice the capacity of any U.S. flag multipurpose vessels currently in operation.

“The Maersk-Rickmers service is designed for shippers needing U.S. flag service and seeking the advantageous economics of large multi-purpose vessels,” said Dave Harriss, director of Ship Management and Chartering at Maersk Line, Limited. “As part of our market analysis, we heard from shippers who said they want greater flexibility from their carriers and the ability to support all their cargo requirements. We listened, and the Maersk-Rickmers service is designed with our customers in mind.”

“The Maersk-Rickmers partnership will have a positive effect on U.S. trade by providing cargo owners the customer-oriented service that both companies are known for,” said Sean Carney, President and CEO of Rickmers-Linie (America). “This adds a new dimension to the portfolio of services Rickmers-Linie provides to customers in the project and breakbulk cargo markets.”

The ships currently fly the Marshall Islands flag and are preparing for their maiden voyages. In November, the vessels are scheduled to complete the process to bring them under the U.S. flag.

Photo courtesy BBC Chartering

BBC Chartering says it has taken delivery of its new heavy lift vessel, BBC Amber, from Jinagzhou Shipyard in China.  The delivery marks the third newbuild delivered to the company this summer as part a “new wave” fleet renewal and expansion program aimed at increasing lifting capacity and modern tonnage of BBC’s fleet.

The BBC Amber is a 14.360 dwat heavy lifter with a lifting capacity of 800mt.  The vessel is the first of 14 newbuildings planned to commence service for BBC chartering over the next two years.

“This vessel series program aims at increasing the lifting capacity of our fleet now up to 800mt. For us this marks a significant step in our company’s development on our ongoing quest to increase service levels, flexibility, and versatility, with modern tonnage at the core of the BBC Chartering operated fleet,” said vend Andersen, Managing Director of BBC Chartering in a press statement.

This June, the company took delivery of the BBC Fuji, the second of eight sister vessels being built in Xingang, China. Similar to its sister vessel BBC Everest, this 9.300 dwat heavy lifter offers a lifting capacity up to 700mt.

Meanwhile, the multipurpose BBC Bangkok, delivered in August from Dalian, China, is the second of eight vessels following BBC Bergen, which joined BBC Chartering’s fleet back in January 2011. This 8.000 dwat vessel comes equipped with twin 80mt lifting gear.

Via BBC Chartering

Ulstein’s “Sea of Solutions” 5000 heavy lift vessel design has been nominated for the prestigious Dutch HME Maritime Innovation Award.

The SOC 5000 is a self propelled heavy lift crane vessel, measuring 180.9m by 46.4m with a lifting capacity of 5,000 metric tons. Two customized versions of this vessel have been developed and are currently under construction, one for Subsea7 SA and one Heerema Marine Contractors.

Also up for the award is IHC Merwede for its Spud Guard system, and NewThex Ned BV for its NEXT door closing system that provides fully remote lockable doors or ‘pirate proof doors’.

The prize is presented annually to the most innovative maritime supplier of the Netherlands and will be presented at the Maritime Awards Gala that takes place on November 3 in Rotterdam.

HMC’s SOC 5000 heavy lift vessel ‘Aegir’, currently under construction in Korea