Normand Subsea, a state-of-the-art dynamically-positioned life-of-field vessel specifically designed for inspection, repair and maintenance work, will shortly start work in the North Sea.
The vessel was officially named in Stavanger mid-September and, in true Norwegian tradition, she has a godmother – in this instance, it is Catherine Gallagher, wife of Shell’s technical VP for exploration and production, John Gallagher, who is based in Aberdeen.
This is a highly versatile 113m (370ft) seagoing super-machine featuring:
Built-in 35-tonne module-handling system.
150-tonne heave-compensated crane.
An extensive spread of two Hercules work-class remotely-operated vehicles (ROVs) and four Cougar observation-class ROVs all equipped for operating to 1,200m (3,937ft) water depth.
A hull with five moonpools.
A well treatment system.
Extensive online and offline survey suite.
Fully enclosed hangar with helideck capable of handling Sikorsky S-61 and S-92 aircraft.
Normand Subsea is part of a $1billion assets investment programme by offshore engineering and construction group Subsea 7 over the period 2006-10.
The design of Normand Subsea was developed by a project team made up of Subsea 7, the ship’s owner, Solstad Offshore, and Norwegian design house Vik-Sandvik in response to a market opportunity in the North Sea to service the needs of a major oil operator – Shell, judging by the Gallagher connection.
The hull was built in Bulgaria and then fitted out at Palmer Johnson in Norway by Solstad. All equipment associated with module handling, well treatment, ROVs, survey, IT and communications was purchased by Subsea 7 and supplied as “owner-furnished equipment” to the shipyard for installation on the vessel.
Extensive model testing was carried out during the design phase to optimise the hull shape for both transit in rough weather and zero-speed performance when holding station using its dynamic-positioning system.
The decision to incorporate five moonpools into the design created some challenges, according to Subsea 7, plus the bow section of the hull was modified significantly to improve rough-weather transit performance.
In common with the group’s other new-build vessels – Seven Oceans (rigid reel pipelay) and Seven Seas (flexlay, J-lay and construction), the soon to be delivered Seven Atlantic (diving support) and the forthcoming Seven Pacific (pipelay and construction), electrical power generation on the Normand Subsea is provided by diesel electric generator sets supplied by Wartsila of Finland, in this case four Wartsila 8L32 units with a combined output of 14,760kW.
This power-station arrangement is designed to drive the ship’s package of six thrusters installed for main propulsion and dynamic positioning. Designed service speed is 12 knots.
Normand Subsea has accommodation for up to 90 and is designed for year-round operations in the Northern North Sea, plus it is capable of operating in moderate ice conditions. Endurance is in excess of 60 days without refuelling.
On the other side of the globe, another versatile ship has started her career – Fugro Survey’s multi-role survey vessel, Fugro Gemini.
This catamaran-style ship is designed to handle both shallow and deepwater geophysical analogue and multi-channel seismic site surveys, pipeline and cable route surveys, swath bathymetry surveys and AUV (autonomous underwater vehicle) surveys.
Fugro Gemini is to serve primarily in the South-east Asia region. It measures 49.3m length overall by 18.2m breadth, so has enormous deck space.
The vessel has been fitted with Fugro Starfix navigation and positioning equipment and high-frequency digital seismic acquisition and processing equipment.
Other key equipment includes sub-bottom profilers; an EM300 multi-beam and single-beam echo sounders; side-scan sonars; HiPAP500; magnetometer; vibro and gravity coring systems, and offline processing stations, enabling the integration of all survey activities from data collection to final onboard reporting.
Fugro Gemini carries a Hugin 1000 AUV rated to 3,000m operating depth.