Subsea 7 has announced that Seaway 7 ASA(1) has been selected by Seagreen 1 Limited as a preferred supplier for the Seagreen 1A offshore wind project, offshore Scotland.

Seagreen 1A lies adjacent to the existing Seagreen project that Seaway 7 is currently progressing and represents approximately 500MW of additional renewable energy generation capacity.

Seaway 7’s scope of work is under final negotiation and may include the full engineering, fabrication, transport and installation of 36 foundations, transportation and installation of the offshore substation and the procurement and installation of inner-array cables. Execution of the scope will be led from Seaway 7’s Aberdeen office.

The project is expected to commence in 2023 with offshore work commencing in late 2024 and could be operational by 2025/26.

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Scottish National Party (SNP) candidates have been accused of failing to back up apparent unanimous support for Inchgreen Dry Dock with an actual election commitment.

Candidates told campaigners they wanted the mothballed dock transformed into a ‘marine engineering and shipbuilding hub’ — but didn’t mention Inchgreen at all in their manifesto.

In a joint statement, issued to the Campaign to Save Inchgreen Dry Dock, the SNP hopefuls echoed a desire by the pressure group to see the UK’s largest mainland dry dock returned to public ownership.

But with no mention of the issue in a glossy 15-page manifesto, the candidates have now had their integrity called into question.

Peel Ports Group last November controversially leased the dry dock to fledgling ship scrappage outfit Atlas Decommissioning, a company which has failed to win a single order in nearly six months.

After boasting of creating a ‘centre of excellence’ which would create 100 skilled jobs, Atlas has been forced to lay off its start-up workforce of 18 with no sign of any work coming to the dock.

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Tier one contractors shortlisted for the Lower Thames Crossing roads packages have been told to start working on their bids.

National Highways has today formally begun the invitation to tender phase of procurement for its £1.9bn Lower Thames Crossing roads contractors.

The £1.9bn investment covers two contracts, one for roads north of the Thames in Essex and a second for roads south of the river in Kent. A third contract to build the tunnels themselves and the approach roads, worth £2.1bn, will be tendered in the coming weeks.

Contractors will be judged on their ability to strip carbon emissions out of the construction process, after the project was designated a pathfinder project to explore carbon neutral construction in the UK.

Contracts are due to be awarded in summer 2023, with construction planned for the following year.

The proposed Lower Thames Crossing includes the longest road tunnel in the UK and 23km of new road that would almost double road capacity across the River Thames east of London.

Shortlisted bidders have been invited to work up their bids, despite delays to the project’s development consent order (DCO) application.

National Highways – then Highways England – was forced to pull its original plans following feedback from the Planning Inspectorate in November 2020. It was then due to go in before the end of last year, but was held up after the government announced an expansion at the Port of Tilbury Forth Ports Limited which uses land original earmarked by National Highways for spoil.

National Highways now expects to resubmit its DCO application later this year, after holding a short consultation on construction changes enforced by the Port of Tilbury scheme.

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UK-based ship classification society Lloyd’s Register has decided to disengage from providing services to Russia amid sanctions imposed on the country for its invasion of Ukraine.

The move will impact Russian owned, controlled or managed assets as well as firms. 

Lloyd’s Register said that it will withdraw all services to Russia to abide by the current laws of the UK, European Union and US.

Claimed to be the world’s first marine classification society, Lloyd’s Register has expertise in offering engineering and technology for the maritime industry.

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Babcock Australia & New Zealand has been awarded a further seven and a half year Maritime Fleet Sustainment Service contract – Hāpai Taua Manuao – by the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF), further strengthening its relationship with the Royal New Zealand Navy.

As the Strategic Maritime Partner to the NZDF, Babcock will provide asset management services, including engineering, project management, production and operational support, to the entire Royal New Zealand Navy fleet, from the frigates through to small craft.

The contract was signed by the Chief of Defence Force, Air Marshal Kevin Short and Babcock‘s New Zealand General Manager, James Morton in Wellington this week.

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The Hunter Class Frigate Program has successfully held a major engineering review, which defines how the Australian Combat System integrates into the Global Combat Ship reference ship design.

The year-long System Definition Review (SDR), involving work by BAE Systems’ engineering teams in Australia and the UK, has established a new baseline design for the Hunter class frigate and builds on the sovereign complex warship design capability at South Australia’s Osborne Naval Shipyard.
 
The SDR is the second major evaluation of the ship’s design and demonstrates how it accommodates the range of capabilities required by the Australian Government , including the Aegis and Australian Interface Combat Management Systems, the CEAFAR2 phased array radar and integration of the Seahawk Romeo Maritime Combat Helicopter. These changes introduce significant leading edge combat system capability, ready to meet the Royal Australian Navy’s needs.
 
Only recently, BAE Systems transferred more than two million digital artefacts from the UK to Australia. The first prototyping unit has also recently been completed at the Osborne shipyard, underscoring the strong progress on the Hunter program.

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Plans to build a new nuclear power plant in the UK have been backed by £100 m of government funding to support the continued development of the Sizewell C project in Suffolk.

The funding commitment from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) will be used to continue the development of the project which will aim to attract further financing from private investors and, subject to value for money and relevant approvals, the UK government.

Ministers have made a commitment to reaching a Final Investment Decision on at least one large-scale nuclear power station this parliament.

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Hellenic Cables, the cable segment of Cenergy Holdings, has been awarded the Dogger Bank C array cable contract by DEME OFFSHORE SERVICES BV, the renewables business unit of DEME Group. Already the designated cables’ supplier for Dogger Bank A and B, with this contract Hellenic Cables becomes the sole inter-array cables’ supplier for the world’s largest offshore wind farm. 

Dogger Bank C is a joint venture between SSE Renewables and Equinor, while Dogger Bank A and B are owned by SSE Renewables, Equinor, and Eni. SSE Renewables is leading the construction and delivery of all three phases of Dogger Bank Wind Farm, while Equinor will operate Dogger Bank Wind Farm on completion.

Under the new contract, Hellenic Cables will design, manufacture, test, and supply approx. 240 km of 66 kV XLPE-insulated inter-array cables and associated accessories. This is in addition to 650 km of array cables already awarded for phases A & B. The cables will be produced at Hellenic Cables’ vertically integrated, state-of-the-art submarine cables plant in Corinth, Greece. Production of the cables for Dogger Bank C is set to begin in 2023 and delivery will be a phased roll out in line with the project execution program. 

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Three winners are sharing a £1million prize for ideas that could help cut greenhouse gas emissions by moving forward the drive to electrify platforms in the North Sea.

The Decarbonisation competition for the electrification of offshore oil and gas installations  was launched by the Oil and Gas Authority (OGA), working with Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), to fund technical and commercial studies on offshore electrification in the UK North Sea as part of the North Sea Transition Deal outcomes. 

The following winning applications look at various ideas that could speed up essential electrification projects. The three companies must now complete work on their studies by 31 March 2022, with project reports to be published in Q2 2022: 

Orcadian Energy (project lead): Innovative concepts for the electrification of offshore installations in the Central Graben (Award:£466,667)

Ørsted (project lead):Addressing technical and commercial requirements of windfarm connections with offshore installations (Award: £239,360) 

Katoni Engineering Ltd: An optimised interface for distributed offshore renewable sources supplying existing offshore installations with secure and low-emissions power(Award: £335,280) 

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Work has started on a £1bn rebuild of facilities at Devonport Dockyard which will create more than 600 construction jobs during the next five years.

The yard, the latest in the UK, is to undergo a huge redevelopment which will start with work to allow the newest nuclear submarines to be refitted in Plymouth.

The forthcoming work is centred around 5 Basin at the yard and although it is predicated on 10 Dock there will also be work at, 9 Dock, 14 Dock and 15 Dock and at the East Berth and West Wall Berth, all of this needed for the new nuclear submarines.

Work will also be carried out on 8 Dock and 11 Dock, which will be used for new warships, plus 12 Dock’s caissons, and on enabling and secondary facilities too.

Construction work is due to start in 2022 at 8, 9 12, 14 and 15 Docks, with all of them completed by 2024.

At 10 Dock the enabling works have begun and a design phase will continue until 2024, by which time construction will have started, and will run until 2026.

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