Dutch Government News

The Dutch government on Friday said it had picked French defense company Naval Group to build four new submarines in coming decades in a long-brewing deal seen by politicians as a potential lifeline for the national shipbuilding industry.The government said the first two submarines would be operational within the next 10 years. It did not specify the exact value of the multi-billion euro contract.The submarines will be of a size to both operate in shallow waters and take part in missions far from base.The agreement still has to be approved by the Dutch parliament…

The Dutch government on Friday said it would replace nearly its entire navy fleet in the coming 15 years, in a project worth several billion euros that it said would mainly benefit Dutch industry.A large part of the project would consist of the replacement of four air defense frigates, the government said, confirming an earlier report by RTL Nieuws.The government said it would work closely with Dutch industry in building the ships, with large roles for shipbuilder Damen and the Dutch arm of French defense company Thales, which would likely supply radar and missile guidance systems."This will s

Danish vessel owner Esvagt has secured a service contract with Vestas for Ecowende’s Hollandse Kust (west) offshore wind farm in the Netherlands, and started the process of designing and building the new service operation vessel (SOV).The newbuild will be the sixth purpose-built SOV for Vestas, reaffirming the partnership between the two companies that have been cooperating since 2010.The Hollandse Kust (west), developed by Ecowende - a joint venture between Shell and Eneco, will consist of 52 offshore wind turbines with a combined capacity of over 760MW.

British satellite communications company Inmarsat said on Wednesday it is nearing an agreement to move some of its ground communications systems from the Netherlands to Greece, resolving a conflict over 5G bandwidth use.The systems based in Burum, Netherlands, use the 3.5Ghz frequency range for emergency communications with sea traffic. Their location has been in doubt for years as the Dutch government plans to use the 3.5Ghz range for 5G telecommunications.Inmarsat said it received…

Dutch shipbuilder Damen Shipyards has sued the Dutch government over damages it says it has suffered due to European sanctions against Russia.Damen, which produces a wide-ranging fleet of industrial and military vessels and luxury yachts, is seeking compensation for business lost due to the sanctions, company spokesman Rick van de Weg said, confirming an earlier report by Bloomberg.Damen had delivery contracts for a number of vessels across the company's portfolio that were scrapped by the sanctions invoked by Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Van de Weg said.Damen had an engineer

The NGO Shipbreaking Platform has called for the safe and environmentally friendly recycling of the FSO Safer, currently being salvaged off the coast of Yemen.The UNDP is looking for a destination for the FSO’s recycling, and the Platform is calling on the Dutch government, one of the biggest donors to the Stop Red Sea Oil Pollution operation, to assist UNDP in identifying a suitable recycling facility. The Netherlands has shown leadership in preventing the environmental disaster an oil spill from the FSO Safer would have caused, says the Platform, along with Dutch company Boskalis, via its subsidiary SMIT Salvage, which has been tasked with the removal of the oil from the FSO.Referring to Dutch involvement in the Stop Red Sea Oil Pollution operation…

Dutch energy company VTTI said on Monday it plans to build a new floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in the Netherlands with capacity to import 5 billion cubic meters of gas annually. On Friday the Dutch government said it was in talks with two different groups over new LNG terminals to increase Dutch import capacity by 5-8 billion cubic meters (bcm) annually as it seeks to ensure the country's energy security. Rotterdam-based VTTI said in a statement it was "striving"…

The first ship to bring a cargo of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to a new terminal at the Dutch port of Eemshaven has docked and has started the unloading process, the gas grid operator said on Thursday, part of Europe's bid to cut reliance on Russian gas.The LNG tanker Murex berthed alongside the regasification unit at the new EemsEnergyTerminal, which can handle 8 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas a year, a Gasunie spokesperson said."Everything is going perfectly," Marie-Lou Gregoire of Gasunie said.The terminal, near Groningen, has two Floating Storage Regasification Units (FSRUs) that Gasuni

New Fortress Energy has executed a binding agreement to charter a floating storage and regasification unit (“FSRU”) to Dutch energy network operator Gasunie, in an effort by the Netherlands to reduce Russian gas imports. The chartered FSRU will provide storage capacity of approximately 170,000 m3 of liquefied natural gas with peak regasification capacity of 900 mmscfd. New Fortress Energy's FSRU will work in tandem with a third party’s FSRU to provide up to 8 bcm per year of total regas capacity.

In research prompted by the incident in the Dutch North Sea in January when a drifting bulk carrier hit offshore wind facilities, Dutch maritime research institute MARIN this week, with industry partners, tested three innovative barriers aimed at averting collisions between ships and wind turbines.The drifting bulk carrier Julietta D initially collided with a tanker before hitting a transformer platform and a turbine foundation for the Hollandse Kust Zuid wind farm currently under…

The second High Voltage Alternating Current (HVAC) offshore transformer station topside, delivered by Petrofac and Drydocks World Dubai for the Dutch-German transmission grid operator TenneT, has set sail from the fabrication facility in the UAE, Petrofac said Monday.The 700 MW Beta topside weighs 3,950-tonne. It is being shipped to the Dutch North Sea aboard Boskalis' Mighty Servant 3 heavy lift and transportation vessel. The topside will form part of the Hollandse Kust Zuid (HKZ) grid connection that connects the offshore wind farm zone to the Dutch mainland at the Maasvlakte.

A Fugro-led consortium has secured a grant from Dutch Government’s Netherlands Enterprise Agency for the development of methanol as a low-carbon shipping fuel.The MENENS (Methanol as Energy Step Towards Emission-free Dutch Shipping) consortium has 22 partners, and according to Fugro, represents the complete Dutch maritime sector, from equipment suppliers, designers, shipbuilders, and ship owners to Geo-data and survey specialist Fugro."Fugro’s leading role in the consortium is…

A Dutch court on Wednesday ruled in favor of Inmarsat in a dispute over the use of 5G bandwidth in the Netherlands, ordering the government to suspend a decision to reserve the bandwidth for telecommunications as of Sept. 1, 2022.Inmarsat currently uses the 3.5 MHz frequency for satellite communications with distressed ships. The Rotterdam District Court said in a summary of its ruling that the state had "insufficiently understood" the importance of that use and wrongly made it…

The Dutch government on Tuesday confirmed that it has awarded 2.1 billion euros ($2.56 billion), nearly half of its 2021 annual budget for sustainable projects, to a project aimed at capturing and storing carbon emissions from Rotterdam Port, Europe's largest.The "Porthos" project, being developed by an industrial consortium that includes Royal Dutch Shell, ExxonMobil, Air Liquide and Air Products, , aims to collect emissions from factories and refineries and store them in empty…

The Dutch government has granted a consortium that includes oil majors Royal Dutch Shell and ExxonMobil around 2 billion euros ($2.4 billion) in subsidies for what is set to become one of the largest carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects in the world, the Port of Rotterdam said on Sunday.Shell and Exxon requested the subsidies in January together with industrial gas suppliers Air Liquide and Air Products for a project which aims to capture CO2 emitted by factories and refineries…

Damen Schelde Naval Shipbuilding (DSNS) has ordered energy management and electric propulsion package from GE’s Power Conversion for the new Combat Support Ship (CSS) being built for the Royal Netherlands Navy.The CSS ordered by the Dutch government in December 2019 will be 180 meters in length, will accommodate a 75-persons basic crew, with capacity for an additional 85 persons on-board. GE’s will deliver main switchboards for the ship distribution system, with two shore connection cubicles…

In the Port of Amsterdam, a new factory is being built that could revolutionize the way we dispose of plastic waste. Utilizing groundbreaking technology, the facility will use previously unrecyclable plastic to create fuel for diesel powered cargo ships. The group behind the facility is Bin2Barrel, a Dutch company founded in 2012 by waste management entrepreneurs Floris Geeris and Paul Harkema. While the chemical recycling technology used in the past has worked, Bin2Barrel is the first company to utilize it commercially. Thanks to a partnership with the Port of Amsterdam and a grant from the Dutch government, the plant is expected to begin operations by the end of 2018. If all goes well, this will be the first of four such ‘plastic to fuel’ factories to be built near the port.

Port of Rotterdam is set to welcome Heerema's Sleipnir, the world's largest semi-submersible crane vessel, which is set to arrive at the port on Saturday, March 21, where it will be made ready for a North Sea decommissioning project.Named after the Norse God Odin's eight-legged stallion, the vessel stands at 220 meters long, 102 meters wide, can accommodate 400 employees, and weighs 119,000 tons and is the first such unit powered by liquefied natural gas (LNG). The semi-submersible vessel has two cranes onboard, each capable of lifting 10,000 metric tons.

The Dutch government said on Thursday it is providing ailing shipbuilder Royal IHC with a lifeline of up to almost 400 million euros ($435 million), enabling the company's takeover by a consortium of marine companies and investors from Benelux countries.IHC had been looking for fresh capital since the summer of 2019 as it grappled with mounting debt and heavy losses on tailor-made ships.The company is to be taken over by Luxembourg-based investor HAL Trust and Belgian peer Ackermans & Van Haaren, together with Dutch dredgers Van Oord and equipment maker Huisman.Together these companies will pr

Jumbo, a Dutch heavy lift shipping and offshore transportation company, has said it will close it office locations and send office employees to work from home until further notice, to reduce the risk of coronavirus infection.The marine company said it was acting in response to the Dutch Government guidance to slow down and prevent the spread of COVID-19 (Coronavirus). It also said that its vessels would continue with their schedule."Our teams (sales, operations, purchasing etc.) can be reached as per usual, although there might be slight delays in response time in specific matters.

In Rotterdam, ships from around the world cruise in and out of Europe's busiest port, a bustling industrial hub that employs almost 200,000 people and produces 20 percent of the Netherlands' climate-changing gases.As Rotterdam tries to cut its emissions - in line with global goals to curb global warming - shipping emissions are a particular challenge, not least because many fall outside the targets set by the Paris Agreement to curb climate change.But the city's bustling port…

There is a growing international consensus that clean hydrogen will play a key role in the world’s transition to a sustainable energy future, said  Noé van Hulst, who chairs the High-Level Advisory Panel for the International Energy Agency (IEA)’s forthcoming hydrogen study.Hulst, the Hydrogen Envoy for the Ministry of Economic Affairs & Climate Policy, The Netherlands, said that it is crucial to help reduce carbon emissions from industry and heavy transport, and also to provide long-term energy storage at scale.Hydrogen is a versatile energy carrier that can be produced from a wide range of sources and used in many ways across the entire energy sector.

The Carbon Trust and Fistuca, in conjunction with industry partners announced the successful completion of the offshore trial of the Fistuca BLUE 25M hammer as part of the Offshore Wind Accelerator BLUE PILOT project.The industry partners include E.ON, EDPR,  EnBW, Equinor, Ørsted, Shell, Sif, SSE, Van Oord, and Vattenfall. The offshore test was carried out on August 13, 2018, using Van Oord’s offshore heavy lift installation vessel, Svanen, off the coast of the Netherlands.The BLUE Hammer is an innovative, new hammer utilizing a large water tank to provide a more energetic, but quieter blow for offshore installation. It is designed to reduce underwater noise levels by up to 20 dB (SEL), and is predicted to reduce the fatigue damage during installation on the pile by up to 90 percent.