The Netherlands: First Service Vessels for Offshore Wind Farms on Drawing Board

Responding to demand from the rapidly expanding European wind energy market, the shipping entrepreneurs J.R. Arends and S. Schakelaar decided to establish SeaZip Offshore Service BV. Started in December 2010, the company focuses on the development and operation of specialised service vessels, mainly for the transfer of personnel and goods to and from offshore wind farms. SeaZip will thus make its own contribution to the spread of sustainable energy. The company motto expresses this ambition: making renewable energy accessible.

SeaZip Offshore Service is an independent company operating in parallel with JR Shipping Group – a ship-owning group active in the container shipping market which Messrs Arends and Schakelaar have managed for over ten years. The newly-founded company will contract out a number of specific maritime activities to several operating companies of the group. SeaZip Offshore Service’s home port is Harlingen, the same port that JR Shipping uses. The company will start its operations with the development and production of specialised service catamaran ships and accommodation support vessels. They will be put on the market using both short and long-term charter contracts based on the delivery of complete maritime service packages.

Focus on Offshore Wind Farms

JR Shipping launched SeaZip Offshore Service because it was poised to diversify its operations. Operating a fleet of 24 container feeders, varying in size from 340 to 1400 TEU, JR Shipping is among the leading European providers of container feeder services. In 2008, the ship-owning group ordered two multipurpose vessels. JR Shipping was successful in this shipping market sector from the very first years of its existence. In 2009, the management team initiated an in-depth study into the developments and opportunities in the offshore industry and discovered that the offshore oil and gas industry still had room for professional providers of maritime services. More specifically, it became clear that the wind energy market would increasingly need access to custom-made solutions in maritime services. This is what SeaZip Offshore Service focuses on.

In the North Sea alone, 16 new wind farms are going to be built between now and 2020 and agreement has already been reached for another 52 wind farms to be built in Europe by 2030. The Netherlands is going to occupy an important position in the future development of offshore wind power. On the one hand, it will provide knowledge for, and participate in, the development of innovative concepts; on the other, it will provide expertise for installation and maintenance operations. Please find more details on market developments, and the role that the Netherlands has in them, in a special edition of JR Shipping Actueel, which can be downloaded from www.seazip.com.

Investment Projects

Conversations with representatives from the industry have revealed that there is an urgent need for a new generation of vessels, in combination with innovative logistic concepts and operations. JR Shipping’s Managing Director J.R. Arends comments: “Using the shipping company’s existing structure not only allows us to provide the industry with the appropriate vessels, but also with the maritime services they need. We provide unique safety and continuity guarantees. JR Ship Management is going to conduct the operational management of the vessels and has all the international ship management certificates that are necessary. Besides that, the group is highly experienced in drawing up and running financing projects for sea vessels. SeaZip Offshore Service customers will benefit from their expertise as well. This means that in the near future the Dutch investors market can expect a number of interesting investment projects.”

Imminent Shortage of Sea Vessels

Messrs Arends and Schakelaar expect the first contracts to be concluded with SeaZip customers soon. They are in close contact with the market and SeaZip Offshore Service’s potential for success in the various tenders is strong. The first vessels to be built – an aluminium service catamaran with a length of almost 20 meters and an accommodation support vessel of approximately 74 meters – are on the drawing boards of several design and consultancy practices. Our close cooperation with the VeKa Group, a leading Dutch shipbuilding group, ensures that there is an adequate capacity for building aluminium hulls. This is a key customer benefit, as state-of-the-art and safe service vessels are likely to be in short supply. According to the calculations commissioned by Mr Arends, the industry is going to need at least 450 new service vessels in the short and medium term if it wants to fulfil all its ambitions.

Safety First

Mr Arends said: “Thanks to our network of maritime specialists, we are able to cater to very specific customer needs swiftly. This means that we have a real comparative advantage, because the industry is on the threshold of a period of spectacular growth. Wind farms are not only growing in number, but also in size. It is interesting to see that they tend to be built at ever-increasing distances from the coast and at greater depths. This makes high demands on the types of maritime services needed and the vessels which are deployed. Capacity and speed spring to mind, but comfort for personnel who have to extend their stay at sea is also a factor. We want to focus first, though, on safety, which is a matter of life and death in the offshore industry. ‘Safety First’ is a principle that we apply as early as in the design stage of our vessels and it is embedded in all the procedures underpinning their operational deployment. This makes SeaZip Offshore Service the ideal maritime partner when maximum accessibility of offshore wind farms is required.”

[mappress]

Source: seazip, December 13, 2010