1 Billion Dollar Vessel?!

[Guest-3-12-09-9-21]

I found this article on rigzone.com Is this some kind of record for the most expensive vessel? It sure sounds impressive. Lots of zeros in the capacities and in the price. --Chuck

Heerema Investing $1 Billion for New Deepwater Construction Vessel
Heerema Marine Contractors 4/30/2007

URL: http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=44532

Heerema Marine Contractors (HMC) is investing $1 billion in a new deepwater construction vessel. The new vessel will feature unrivalled speeds and state-of-the-art equipment. It will enable HMC to operate in remote areas and ultra deepwater increasing the pace of field development worldwide. Once the vessel enters the market in 2010, it will secure construction capacity for at least another three decades.

The conceptual design was prepared in-house Heerema Marine Contractors.

The new vessel will be 220 meters long, 88 meters wide and 44 meters depth. It will have a maximum speed of 20 knots: up to four times the speed of our current deepwater construction vessels. The high speed capacity of the new vessel will dramatically cut travel time between projects and provide our clients with more productivity in a broader range of geographic areas.

There will be facilities for 550 people, upgradeable to 750 people. Payload is 25,000 tonnes and the power generation capacity will be of 75 MW. The Dynamic Positioning Station keeping system will be of NMD Class III.

The dual crane capacity of 15,000 mT enables us to continue installing the largest and heaviest fixed and floating structures to date. The new J-Lay tower and deepwater lowering construction means we can install pipelines and structures from 200 - 3,500 meters water depth with a maximum of 32"O.D. The tension capacity will be 2,000 mT: this is double the capacity of the Balder.

Opening up the Arctic frontier
Because of its design and speed, the new vessel will make offshore construction in the Arctic feasible. The placement of the cranes, the J-Lay tower and other installation equipment, as well as the structural quality of the hull and thrusters, are well suited for the Arctic.

Next steps -to be expected this summer- will be the long-lead ordering of key components, such as the cranes and J-Lay Tower. Options are currently being discussed with possible suppliers.

Heerema Marine Contractors (HMC) based in Leiden, The Netherlands, is the world leading offshore construction company for the oil and gas industry. HMC transports, installs and removes all types of offshore facilities. The fleet now consists of three crane vessels (Thialf, Hermod and Balder). HMC is a division within the Heerema Group.

[longliner45]

sound like a commercial,,,you work for them?,,,

[mydauphin]

Give me 500 Million and I can build this thing and have money left over. May be it is made by same people building 7 billion dollar wall.

[Guest-3-12-09-9-21]

Don't work for them (I cut and pasted the rigzone press release) - just a fan of people throwing huge amounts of money into the oil industry since I am a piece of oil field boat trash.
--Chuck

[longliner45]

so what your saying is (chuck)is that the reason gas cost more is because of projects like this and not because of the working mans salary?????maybe I can do one on the power companys,,,,,,have a good one ,longliner

[Troutcatcher]

They could save some money by using FreeShip to design this monstrous thing

[stonebreaker]

Nah, an American aircraft carrier costs about 4 billion to build.

[PI Design]

The budget for the two new Royal Navy Aircraft Carriers (CVF) is about £3.4billion ($6.8billion) combined.

[Guest-3-12-09-9-21]

I was thinking some kind of record for a private company - the day rate on something like this must be close to 1 million a day? It's hard for the private sector to compete with the govt for spending money...

By comparison the new deepwater drill ships cost around 600 million dollars.

--Chuck

[charmc]

What is amazing to me is the claim of 20 knot speed. That's about 3 - 4 times faster than any other vessel of that type. They already have the world's heaviest capacity floating crane vessel in their 14,000 mT lift SSCV Thialf. Maximum transit speed of Thialf is 6 knots, typical for such vessels.
I can see the cost when you add the speed capability to the $500 million or so it takes to build a "normal" SSCV; look at the dimensions: 220 m long, 88 m beam; this must be using SWATH or similar concept to get that speed.

[charmc]

If true, the transit speed would help hold down the charter cost, as this beast could get to a lift site 3-4 times faster than the competition. Still, you're right Chuck, that's got to be one heck of a rate!