Wednesday 11 August 2010

SeaEnergy lands exclusive access to self-stabilizing offshore platforms

SeaEnergy (LON:SEA) said it has taken an “important step closer” to launching its marine services business for the offshore wind-power industry, with the signing of an exclusivity agreement to secure use of ship-based self stabilizing platforms from Ampelmann - a Dutch marine engineering group.

“This is an important agreement for SeaEnergy as we establish our marine services business aimed at offering greater efficiencies to customers in the expanding offshore wind industry,” SeaEnergy chairman Steve Remp commented.

“Ampelmann’s innovative technology, already proven in the oil industry, allows us to offer customers greater levels of accessibility to offshore structures, in the most challenging of conditions, providing a solution for one of the key issues for the industry today.”

The Ampelmann system is a ship-based self stabilizing platform that actively compensates a vessel’s motions “to make offshore access safe, easy and fast”.

SeaEnergy intends to use the Ampelmann platform aboard Ulstein X-BOW vessels, enabling SeaEnergy’s marine services business to provide greater levels of access and cost efficiencies to offshore wind turbine developers and operators than are currently available to them.

The company recently signed a letter of intent with Ulstein to co-develop new service vessels for the offshore wind industry.

“The integration of the Ulstein X-Bow vessel and the Ampelmann platform system will help to maximise the time that wind farm developers can put technicians onto offshore turbines, thus minimising the periods when turbines are not producing electricity and maximising their revenues,” SeaEnergy stated.

According to SeaEnergy, enhanced access to offshore turbines will also allow construction and commissioning phases to be shortened and offshore wind farms to start generating earlier.

Furthermore, the vessel system will permit night-time operations, and enable significantly greater levels of access for maintenance in challenging conditions, particularly important in winter when access is often at its most difficult and potential production is at its greatest.

“The combined Ampelmann and X-Bow system is capable of staying at sea 24 hours a day, seven days a week, providing access to wind turbines virtually all year round."

The exclusivity agreement covers UK territorial waters, the North Sea, the Irish Sea, the English Channel and the Baltic Sea. The exclusivity agreement can be maintained for a five year period, as long as SeaEnergy places orders for a series of Ampelmann systems.

In relation to a separate development, SeaEnergy told investors that it has now become an accredited supplier under the Achilles Joint Qualifications System (JQS) in Norway and Denmark. The Achilles JQS is used for the preparation of bidder lists and pre-qualification by participating companies - which include 20 major oil companies, wind developers and main contractors. Click here to watch a film of the Ampelmann stabilising platform in action.

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