Belgium’s DEME Group has attempted to take possession of the advanced cable lay vessel Living Stone, currently under construction at the financially troubled LaNaval shipyard in Bilbao, Spain, and tow the vessel to another location where the delayed construction could be completed.
On the night of Wednesday, 20 September, DEME sent a team of people and two tugboats to the shipyard to unmoor the vessel and tow it to another location.
The shipyard’s security guards notified the local police who prevented the vessel, built for DEME’s subsidiary Tideway, from being towed from the shipyard.
No arrests have been made and representatives from DEME/Tideway are currently negotiating with the shipyard to come to a solution to continue the construction of the vessel as soon as possible, DEME’s spokesperson said.
DEME, through Tideway, signed a contract for the vessel with La Naval in January 2015. The vessel was scheduled to be delivered in the second quarter of 2017.
However, LaNaval shipyard failed to complete the vessel in time and has missed several contractual deadlines due to financial restructuring and the start of the bankruptcy proceedings.
”We are considering taking legal action against LaNaval because they missed a lot of contractual deadlines,” the spokesperson said.
Following the delivery, the Living Stone was scheduled to install the inter-array cables on the Merkur offshore wind farm in the German North Sea, expected to commence shortly. The vessel is also to be deployed on the world’s largest offshore wind farm, Hornsea Project One in the UK.
DEME declined to comment on the effect of the delayed construction and delivery of the vessel on the agreed contracts.