Northern Offshore Services (N-O-S) has signed a contract with Ørsted for seven crew transfer vessels (CTVs) which will support offshore wind farm operations from the developer’s UK West Coast Hub.
Under the three-year agreement, the CTVs will operate on Walney, Walney Extension, West of Duddon Sands, Barrow, Burbo Bank and Burbo Bank Extension offshore wind farms using Ørsted’s Barrow and Liverpool operations sites as base ports.
“Our West coast offshore wind farms have a total capacity of more than 1.8GW and are an important source of clean, renewable electricity” , said Howard Shields , Head of UK West Operations at Ørsted. “We have an excellent operations team that ensures our offshore wind farms continue to operate efficiently and effectively. A reliable CTV service is a vital tool in maintaining our excellent operational performance track record”.
The vessels will be deployed on their respective projects gradually until the summer.
“We are pleased to have been selected for this scope, and this award is based on many years of good cooperation between N-O-S and Ørsted. This long-term agreement will further strengthen our position and commitment in the UK market” , said Fredrik Hallqvist , CCO at Northern Offshore Services.
In May 2020, the Sweden-based vessel operator formed a joint venture with SEA O.G. Offshore to operate crew transfer vessels in the U.S. offshore wind industry. At the beginning of last year, N-O-S parent company Northern Offshore Group signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Japanese shipping company NYK for a crew transfer vessel business that would serve offshore wind projects in Japan.