Jifmar and WMO form French offshore wind joint venture

France’s Jifmar Offshore Services and Denmark’s World Marine Offshore have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to establish a joint venture to provide offshore wind services to the French market.

The new company will deliver vessels to the market as well as turnkey services.

The company plans to invest in new crew transfer vessels (CTVs) but it does not intend to focus on this type of vessel alone.

The joint venture will offer all kinds of vessels from CTVs to SOVs, as well as Walk-to-Work vessels, DSVs, and DP multicats, mobilizing the owned or managed fleet from both companies, Jifmar said. They will also offer ROV solutions.

Lars Christian Zohner, CEO of WMO, said: “We have been focusing on the French market over the last decade. We know exactly how challenging the French offshore wind farms can be from an operational point of view as well as from a weather perspective. By teaming up with Jifmar, we increase the local content and the local knowledge. Both companies are very similar although operating in two different parts of the industry. In addition to investment capacity and operational excellence, likeminded entrepreneurs are very important when you discuss a JV from which you operate 8+ vessels and a variety of services for long term contracts.”

The joint venture is in a position to deliver commissioning services, shore logistics, operation and maintenance solutions, as well as marine coordination and cable-related services, JIfmar said.

”Although, we recently purchased two CTVs and turned them into DP1 vessels for a long term governmental contract, we never intended to enter the offshore wind CTV market as a sole player,” Jean Michel Berud, co-founder and CEO of Jifmar, said.

”When the partnership with WMO came up, and we saw how different their vessels were, we started believing in the JV’s success. Jifmar is a specialist when it comes to DP Multicats and has the largest fleet of such vessels. We are innovative and built our reputation on delivering high quality services to our clients. By meeting Lars and WMO’s team we met with a company sharing the same DNA and the same level of expectations. You can expect the JV to operate with the same standards.”