Category Archives: offshore

Atlantic Towings new PSV’s arrive.. Well the tops anyway


Atlantic towing recently won a renewal for offshore contracts off Newfoundland and announced they were building new PSV’s to do the work. These vessels would be built offshore.

Seems the built offshore bit is a sort of, as is thier arrival today. Rather then build complete vessels the top sides arrived today aboard the Biglift vessel Happy Sky. Presumably the bottom parts will arrive shortly on a semisubmersible vessel.  The tops can then be joined to the hulls completing the ship.

Previous Atlantic towing offshore vessels were built at halifax shipyard. Due to clearances in the old assembly hall top sides were constructed and attached to the hull in the yard, so this procedure is nothing new to Halifax shipyards. I suspect in this case importing ship parts results in less duty to be paid then the 25% paid on imported vessels.

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Photo By Cavit Ege Tulça

UPDATE: Further research has provided a more interesting case. The ships were assembled Entirely at the Damen Shipyard in Romania. The two vessels were then Towed to Cadiz Spain, where the topsides appear to have been removed directly from the hulls by the Happy Sky. The Hulls are in tow to Halifax by tugs Fairplay 30 and Fairplay 31, and due next week.

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Fairlift Delivers to Stena Icemax

_MG_6662The Heavy lift vessel Fairlift made a quick stop at pier 31 today. She reportedly delivered something to the Stenna Icemax, now located off the Shelburne Basin. Jumbo Shipping does offer subsea installation as one of their services, so its possible the ship delivered something to the seabed, rather then to the ship itself.

 

In other Icemax news, the CNSOPB gave shell permission to start drilling again.

AUDACIA – Pipe layer at Anchorage1

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Today brought the arrival of the AUDACIA – a pipe laying vessel. She arrived overnight and took to Anchorage 1.

She was recently working on the Hebron oil field laying part of the offshore loading system – the large Stinger is used to roll the pipeline into the sea, and is lowered when in use.

Jones Tide Finished up

Jones tide sailed just after noon, having finished up her charter. The Ship has spent a few weeks tied up at the old coast guard base, an On May 3 reverted to her Vanuatu registry. The Vessel gave Port Fourchon, located outside of New Orleans, as its destination.

This may have been the scheduled ending period for the charter, however her sister Breaux Tide is still on Charter, so she may have been released early due to slow progress with drilling.

Noranda Madeleine arrives with new Riser

The general cargo ship Noranda Madeleine arrived at pier 9 from France yesterday afternoon with a new Drilling Riser. The Foam Buoyancy modules are already laid out on the pier, and as the riser pipe is unloaded it is assembled.

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The Noranda Madeleine is due to sail tonight, and presumably at that time the riser will be loaded onto the platform supply vessels and transported to the Stenna Icemax.

If the Noranda Madeleine Looks Familiar, Its because she was a regular caller to Halifax as the Jan Van Gent for Nirint.

 

UPDATE: Besides adding a current Photo, She appears to be in the process of naming back to Jan Van Gent. Her stern is still painted Noranda Madeleine, but the Bow is in the process of reverting back to Jan Van Gent. See Shipfax Yesterday for a photo under the new (old?!)name.

 

Photos of todays operations at pier 9 will follow.

Stena Icemax Now 24nm Off Halifax

The Stena Icemax has now moved to a position about 24 Nautical miles off Halifax Harbour.
It is unlikely she will actually enter Halifax, but the new position makes supply runs much shorter.

She is the Blue Square in the Bottom Right corner of the Chart.

The Stena Icemax Lost her Riser when it disconnected in a storm Earlier this Month. They are now likely in the process of preparing to recover it.

Stenna Icemax Looses Drilling Riser

CBC News is reporting that the Stenna Icemax, drilling for shell, disconnected from and lost the drilling riser over the weekend. It is now lying on the seabed.

In anticipation of bad weather, all drilling fluids were stopped, the drill pipe removed, and the blowout preventer on the seafloor secured. The riser is the pipe that is used to control the Blow out preventer, Supply drilling mud, and contains the drill bit. It will disconnect form the drill ship if conditions get to rough, as it acts like a fixed tether to the ship.

The Stenna Icemax is currently drilling a well names Cheshire L-97. To date she has reached a depth of 6,669.09m, with a projected final dell depth of 7,532m. The water depth is 2,143.02m. weekly status reports indicate no progress was made on the well for 3 weeks in January – the reasons for this are not known.