Dudgeon News

Norwegian energy firm Equinor has awarded a 5-year contract extension to Danish offshore vessel owner Esvagt for the use of the Esvagt Njord vessel at the Dudgeon offshore wind farm in the UK. The extension runs until 2026.The SOV (Service Operation Vessel) ‘Esvagt Njord’ has been servicing Equinor at the wind farm off Great Yarmouth on the English east coast since the autumn of 2016.According to the Danish company, ‘Esvagt Njord’ was the third specially built SOV dedicated to offshore wind farms in Esvagt's fleet when it arrived as a newbuild in the autumn of 2016.

Last Tuesday, the crew of the service operations vessel (SOV) Esvagt Njord helped save seven fishermen in distress near the Dudgeon Offshore Wind Farm in the U.K. North Sea.Esvagt Njord is a wind turbine ship assisting Equinor in the operation of the offshore wind farm off Great Yarmouth on the English east coast. Over the radio, skipper Brian Kristiansen heard a fishing vessel nearby calling for help, and when he responded, he learned that the ship was taking in water. "The fishing vessel had yet to send out a Mayday. We had a feeling, however, that there was a need for help close by.

Orkney-based Green Marine won a three-year contract to deliver operations and maintenance work for Equinor’s Dudgeon offshore windfarm.Green Marine will supply its Damen-built 2610 Twin Axe vessel, Green Storm, to assist in the operations and maintenance of the windfarm alongside support from the company’s experienced onshore team.Green Storm is a dedicated vessel for the offshore wind industry, providing safe transportation of personnel and cargo to offshore installations.

One of the world’s largest offshore wind projects, the 402-megawatt (MW) Dudgeon offshore wind farm in the U.K., announced the signing and pricing of privately placed notes for the refinancing of the project’s existing non-recourse project debt, with financial close expected next week. The original financing for Dudgeon was successfully closed in May 2016.The refinanced debt consists of approximately GBP1.27 billion ($1.77 billion) in fully-amortizing senior-term loans, comprising around GBP561 million in commercial debt and a GBP706 million private placement of senior secured notes, maturing in June 2032.Both tranches were oversubscribed, reflecting strong credit features and investor interest.

The government regulator for gas and electricity markets in Great Britain Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem) has granted TC Dudgeon OFTO plc a licence for the link to the Dudgeon offshore wind farm.The licence allows Dudgeon to own and operate the GBP297.9 million (USD 391 mln) high-voltage transmission link to the Dudgeon offshore wind farm for the next 20 years.Transmission Capital Partners, a consortium comprising International Public Partnerships Limited, Amber Infrastructure Group and Transmission Investment, was selected by Ofgem through a tender process in which bidders compete to become Offshore Transmission Owners (OFTOs).The Dudgeon wind farm is the first project from the fifth tender round of the regime for which Ofgem has granted an OFTO licence.

Block Island — U.S.-based Deepwater Wind’s five-turbine, 30-megawatt wind park — was the first. It showed what was possible, what might not have been optimal and how long it all takes. Since then, incentives for onshore-wind have been curbed, while a tax credit for offshore wind has been extended. Wind parks are in the works. States have power companies buying offshore wind energy, and experienced offshore operators are hiring the new wind-service vessels from elements of their oil-and-gas supply chain. The Jones Act, too, is being overcome by fleet owners and designers joining the U.S.

DONG Energy has chosen Esvagt as partner in establishing the first offshore wind farm to break the 1 gigawatt barrier; the 1,200 mW offshore wind farm, Hornsea 1, off Grimsby in the UK sector of the North Sea. The 'Esvagt Castor’ will work as standby vessel and man overboard rescue vessel during the building of the offshore wind farm, which currently consists of a meteorological mast and half a dozen buoys and which, in 2020, will supply CO2 neutral power to around 850,000 homes. “Activity levels in the offshore wind farm are expected to be high in the years to come while the wind farm is being established. We were chosen because of our ability to launch FRBs and rescue people in all weather conditions.

The world's first offshore floating wind farm has started to deliver electricity to the Scottish grid, providing power to approximately 20,000 households. The 30MW Hywind Scotland wind farm, operated by Statoil in partnership with Masdar 25 kilometers offshore Peterhead in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, was officially opened today by First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon. “This marks an exciting development for renewable energy in Scotland,” First Minister Sturgeon said. “The learnings from Hywind Scotland will pave the way for new global market opportunities for floating offshore wind energy.

Just days after Deepwater Wind said its Block Island Wind Farm has begun delivering electricity into the New England region’s grid, Statoil reports that it has been declared the provisional winner of the U.S. government’s wind lease sale of 79,350 acres offshore New York. Statoil will now have the opportunity to explore the potential development of an offshore wind farm to provide New York City and Long Island with a significant, long-term source of renewable electricity. Statoil submitted a winning bid of $42,469,725 during the online offshore wind auction concluded by the U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM).

GAC UK has been appointed by Seaway Heavy Lifting (SHL) to provide essential shipping services support for the construction and installation of 84 new turbines as part of a major windfarm expansion project which will increase generating capacity almost six-fold. SHL, the engineering, procurement, construction and installation contractor, will design, supply and install the piled foundations, jacket substructures and inter-array cables for the Beatrice Offshore Windfarm Limited (BOWL) project in the Outer Moray Firth. They will also transport and install the offshore substations. Both SHL’s crane vessels will be deployed: HLV Stanislav Yudin’ from April 2017 to April 2018, HLV ‘Oleg Strashnov’ from August to October 2017 and again from May to July 2018.

From spring 2019, A2SEA will play a key role in building the world’s largest ever offshore wind farm, Hornsea Project One for DONG Energy. Capacity will be 1.2GW. A2SEA will deploy its purpose-built offshore installation vessel Sea Installer to install a part of the 174 Siemens 7MW turbines. ”It is a great pleasure and with pride that we can inform that A2SEA has signed a contract to in-stall turbines at what will become the world’s largest offshore wind farm, Hornsea Project One," says Jens Frederik Hansen, CEO at A2SEA. The Hornsea Project One OWF will be located 120km off the Yorkshire Coast, covering approx. 407 square kilometres. When fully commissioned, the 1.2GW offshore wind farm will provide green energy for well over 1 million homes in the UK.

MPI Workboats has been awarded two long-term contracts with Statoil on the Dudgeon Offshore Windfarm. MPI Napoleon and MPI Snowball will provide crew-transfer support, with the first vessel having commenced her 18-month contract earlier this month. The second vessel will start a three-year contact later in 2016. The Dudgeon Offshore Wind Farm is a GBP 1.5 billion project that will harness offshore wind to power more than 410,000 U.K. homes. This 402MW offshore wind farm, to be located some 20 miles off the North Norfolk coast…

Nauta Shiprapair Yard launched a partly outfitted service offshore vessel, Esvagt Njord, built for Norwegian client, Havyard Ship Technology. Taking place on January 22, the launching marks Nauta’s first in 2016. The contract for this unit was signed roughly a year ago, and today the ship launched from the slipway B1. Esvagt Njord was built at a rapid pace, simultaneously with other ship construction in Nauta Shipyard – said Ewa Jagielska Director of Marketing in Newbuilding Department in Nauta Shiprepair Yard. Esvagt Njord is 84 meters long and over 17 meters wide.

Sweden's Vattenfall expects to be able to build offshore wind power projects, one of the most expensive sources of renewable energy, without subsidies by the middle of the next decade, a senior company official said on Thursday. The state-owned utility plans to boost its wind power portfolio in Europe to 4 gigawatts (GW), equivalent to four nuclear reactors, by 2020 from the current installed 1.8 GW, and further to 7 GW by 2025. "We should be able to build onshore wind power projects by 2020 without subsidy, and we also expect that we could build offshore wind power without subsidy by 2025, but that would depend on the projects," Michael Simmelsgaard, head of Vattenfall's strategic projects in wind, told a conference.

Norway's Havyard Ship Technology has delivered the first of three offshore wind service operations vessels to Danish shipping company Esvagt. The 83.7-metre vessel is the first of its kind to be manufactured by the oil sector specialist and will be deployed under long-term contracts with Siemens. The vessel is the first of a pair ordered in July 2013 to work under long-term contracts with Siemens on service assignments for offshore wind farms. The second is scheduled for delivery from the shipyard in March this year. Esvagt has also ordered an additional Havyard 832 SOV from the shipbuilder that will be under contract for the Dudgeon windfarm, which is operated by Statoil.

A proposed $10 billion Australian coal port expansion, one of two port expansions planned near the Great Barrier Reef, was shelved by its sponsors on Friday who pointed to a lack of demand for the extra capacity. The Dudgeon Point coal terminal project, designed to handle 180 million tonnes a year, was withdrawn on Friday ahead of a deadline for submitting all the studies for its application for environmental approval. The decision came in the wake of a slide in coal prices to five-year lows that has forced miners, led by BHP Billiton Ltd and Glencore, to cancel coal projects, shut mines and sack thousands of workers. The two-terminal…

Royal Boskalis Westminster N.V. (Boskalis) announces that VSMC, its strategic cable-laying joint venture with VolkerWessels, has been awarded a contract by Dudgeon Offshore Wind Limited, owned by Norwegian companies Statoil and Statkraft, for the export and inter-array cabling for the Dudgeon Offshore Wind Farm. The project has a total contract value of EUR 110 million (Boskalis share EUR 55 million). VSMC will perform two 1,100-meter horizontal directional drillings at the landfall in 2015, followed by the installation of two 42-kilometer export cables in 2016. The scope of work also includes the design, supply, installation, terminations and testing of 67 infield cables with a total length of approximately 100 kilometers.

Dudgeon Offshore Wind Ltd has awarded the contract to build its onshore operations and maintenance (O&M) base to East Anglian construction company R G Carter. The company has been contracted to build the wind farm's new O&M base at Berth 9 located next to the River Yare within the Great Yarmouth port. Work commenced in early July 2015 and is scheduled to be completed during the second quarter of 2016. RG Carter have been contracted to convert an existing warehouse into Dudgeon's permanent office and logistics facility. Once finished the building will include a two story facility, integrated into the existing framework of the warehouse…

Dudgeon Offshore Wind Limited has awarded the Charter for WTG transport and installation to A2SEA A/S. A2SEA shall provide the jack-up vessel Sea Installer including 24/7 marine crew and crane operators for transport and installation of the 67 Siemens 6.0-154 wind turbine generators (WTG). The charter covers project management, and design, procurement and installation of necessary sea fastening and grillage for the work. All lifting operations will be performed by the vessel crane under supervision of Siemens personnel. The vessel shall be mobilized and ready for load–out at Siemens plc’s load-out site in Hull, UK 2nd January 2017. The WTG components (blades…

As operator, Statoil has awarded two contracts to Siemens plc for the engineering, supply, assembly, commissioning and service of 67 wind turbine generators for the Dudgeon Offshore Wind Farm project. The wind turbine generator (WTG) supply contract will cover engineering, procurement, assembly and offshore commissioning. Each turbine (6 MW) consists of a tower section, a nacelle and three separate rotor blades (154-meter rotor diameter). The engineering work will commence in…

ABB, the power and automation technology group, inform they have won an order worth around US$55-million to supply a submarine AC (alternating current) power cable system for a new wind farm, located off the coast of Norfolk, England. The order was received from Dudgeon Offshore Wind Limited, a company owned by Statoil and Statkraft. The underwater cables will feed the electricity generated by the 400-megawatt (MW) Dudgeon Offshore Wind Farm into the UK national grid. ABB will design and supply two 132-kilovolt (kV) three-core AC submarine cables…

Statoil has made the final investment decision to build the world’s first floating wind farm: The Hywind pilot park offshore Peterhead in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. The decision triggers investments of around NOK 2 billion, realizing a 60-70 percent cost reduction per MW from the Hywind demo project in Norway. Statoil will install a 30 MW wind turbine farm on floating structures at Buchan Deep, 25 kilometers offshore Peterhead, harnessing Scottish wind resources to provide renewable energy to the mainland. The wind farm will power around 20,000 households. Production start is expected in late 2017. “Our objective with the Hywind pilot park is to demonstrate the feasibility of future commercial, utility-scale floating wind farms.

The British government on Wednesday awarded investment contracts under a new subsidy regime to eight renewable energy projects, including five offshore wind farms and three biomass plants. The projects together are worth 12 billion pounds ($20 billion) and will support 8,500 jobs in Britain's energy sector, adding up to 4.5 gigawatts (GW) in new electricity generation capacity, the government said. The contracts were awarded on Wednesday under Britain's new contracts-for-difference scheme which gives renewable power generators certainty of a minimum electricity price over 15 years. The projects include the Dudgeon offshore wind farm…