A2SEA A/S (A2SEA) today announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for a cooperation agreement with Teekay Corporation, a vessel owner and operator providing transportation services within the offshore sector.
The aim of the cooperation is to design, deliver and operate floating transportation and installation vessels that can work in the deeper more challenging sites that the industry faces, and can cope with new concept foundations such as tripods and jackets that we will see in the future of Offshore Wind.
This cooperation is based on A2SEA’s extensive know-how of offshore installation and Teekay’s unique experience of operating large vessels controlled by dynamic positioning (DP). Both compa¬nies are planning to jointly develop the floating design through a technical study and subsequently deliver an innovative vessel to the market by 2014.
“A2SEA are committed to developing an innovative vessel design that could cope with the next generation of foundations. Our aim is to provide a cost efficient concept that is unrestricted by fac¬tors that the 2nd generation vessels coming onto the market now face such as; water depth, sea bed, etc. We at A2SEA alongside Teekay Corporation believe that we have found the concept that will drive down the cost of foundation installation and will also reduce the installation time” , says Kaj Lindvig, Chief Sales Officer, A2SEAA/S. “By having a floating installation vessel we are able to car¬ry pre-assembled foundations straight out to site, we are very excited by this venture and the pros¬pect of developing a pioneering foundation installation technique.”
“Our unique experience from shuttle tanker operations and ability to access suitable existing ton¬nage, paired with A2SEA’s extensive experience from the offshore wind sector, provides the ideal basis to jointly develop an optimized vessel for the installation of offshore wind foundations”, says Stein Rynning, Senior Vice President, Teekay Shuttle Tankers and Offshore. “This will give our cus¬tomers greater efficiencies, lower costs per unit, and shorter installation times.”
Teekay will own and operate the vessel while A2SEA will provide project management and opera-tional expertise.
[mappress] Source: a2sea, June 30, 2011.