First Moray East OWF jacket foundations arrive at Port of Nigg

The heavy load carrier OHT Osprey has arrived in the Port of Nigg with the first eight jacket foundations for the Moray East offshore wind farm.

The jackets, manufactured by Lamprell in the United Arab Emirates, are the first of the total of 45 that the company will ship to the UK for the Moray East offshore wind farm. Lamprell is also in charge of delivering jacket foundations for the wind farm’s three offshore substations.

The UAE company, which is executing the project at its Sharjah and Hamryiah yards, announced in January that it would start delivering the Moray East jackets at the end of the first quarter of this year.

Mid-April, Lamprell revealed its plans to close its Sharjah facility after it completes the part of the Moray East project being carried out there. The Hamriyah yard, the company’s largest facility, will remain open.

Meanwhile, the construction at the project site off the UK is moving forward. DEME’s installation vessel Apollo completed the installation of the pin piles for the jacket foundations in February.

For the installation of the 103 jacket foundations, DEME will use its new vessel Orion. The vessel, built at COSCO Qidong shipyard in China, arrived in Europe in autumn 2019 for the final construction phase. In February, a 145-metre Liebherr HLC 295000 main crane boom was installed on the vessel at Liebherr’s facility in Rostock, Germany.

At the beginning of May, the crane collapsed while undergoing load tests. It is unknown at this point if this will, and to what extent, affect the construction timeline of Moray East. DEME is scheduled to take delivery of the vessel in the second half of May.

The 950 MW Moray East offshore wind farm will feature 100 MHI Vestas 9.5 MW turbines.

The remaining 55 wind turbine jacket foundations will be delivered by Smulders, which is carrying out a major part of the fabrication works in Newcastle.

In 2019, DEME Offshore selected Global Energy Group to provide the Port of Nigg as a staging port for the Moray East jacket foundations installation works.