Hebburn Facility News

A&P Tyne’s number 5 dock at Hebburn on Tyneside will shortly accommodate one of the largest vessels to be docked on the River Tyne in recent years. The Floating, Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel Haewene Brim will visit in the Summer for a 35day upgrading to its process plant and hull maintenance period refit. Work is already well in hand in the fabrication and assembly of the new process modules for the vessel. The vessel upgrading is being carried out in a partnership between A&P Tyne Ltd. and McNulty Offshore Contractors Ltd. of South Shields who are the prime contractor. Bluewater are the vessels owner and operator, Haewene Brim is currently on charter to Shell UK on the Pierce field in the North Sea.

Cammell Laird has been awarded a multi-million dollar contract to drydock and upgrade the RFA helicopter support ship Argus. This award follows the successful refit of the RFA Fort Rosalie earlier this year. The RFA Argus is designated as a helicopter support vessel and plays a vital role in the support of U.K. overseas operations. A significant portion of the upgrading of the vessel is to replace the existing internal modular hospital. A new state of the art hospital facility will be built into the existing vessel. The primary casualty receiving station (P.C.R.S.) is capable of handling 90 people and will be used to provide emergency hospital facilities with 20 high dependency units and 4 operating tables.

A&P Tyne re-delivered the FPSO Haewene Brim to Holland’s Bluewater following an extensive upgrading to its process plant and hull maintenance period refit. The vessel will now return to the Pierce Field in the U.K. sector of the North Sea under charter to Shell U.K. The contract was won in a partnership between A&P Tyne Limited and McNulty Offshore Contractors Limited of South Shields, who were the prime contractor. The Pierce field is 150 miles due east of Aberdeen in the UKCS (U.K. continental shelf) with a 85 m water depth.

A&P Group are delighted to have the opportunity to bid for packages of work on the CVF Future Carrier Program. With the possibility of five super blocks to be constructed, the A&P Dry Docks at Hebburn, Southampton and Birkenhead offer ideal facilities for a portion of this work. In particular, the Hebburn facility with major fabrication capability alongside the dry dock, makes A&P confident that they can play a significant role in supporting the DPA to achieve an optimum solution for the build strategy. A spokesman for A&P Group said the “CVF program will provide the Royal Navy with their two most important surface vessels for the next 50 years and will require commitment from many areas of industry to deliver these vital ships.

"Ship repair in the U.K. is looking positive for 2003" say the A&P Group, who has confirmed that all 14 of their dry docks are full with various vessels under repair, refit and conversion. A&P Tyne is currently hosting a number of ships including Stirling Shipmanagement's 2,270dwt offshore supply vessel Putford Enterprise, the 2,067dwt offshore supply vessel Pacific Banner owned by Swire Pacific Offshore, Boyd Line's 1,621grt Arctic Warrior and P&O Ferries' 20,446grt PO Kent. Across the river at A&P Tyne's Hebburn facility is Technip Offshore's 9,158grt diving support vessel CSO Wellservicer, which is due to leave the dry dock on January 12 .