Marine mobility Conquest Offshore

Conquest Offshore BV is a Dutch joint venture between Concordia Offshore BV and Zwagerman Offshore Services BV. Abigail Saltmarsh looks at their pioneering project, the Conquest MB1.

MARINE MOBILITY

Conquest Offshore BV is still a relatively young company but its floating crane barge Conquest MB 1 is already making waves. Jippes Huibregtse, project manager at the Dutch joint venture, said that the company is seeing significant interest in the Conquest MB1 project from offshore operators and marshalling yards, particularly those in the wind turbine industry.

“There is a big market out there in logistics and installation work for the wind industry, as well as other marine work, which requires the sort of mobility and capacity we can offer. Offshore work is a global enterprise and we can foresee a time when we will look to more floating crane barges, which would be different classes, with different levels of lifting capacity.

“This is exciting but we are looking to do it steadily. We have a saying here: ‘Big things happen in small steps’.”

A track record

Conquest Offshore BV was formed by Concordia Offshore BV and Zwagerman Offshore Services BV for offshore transportation, removal, refurbishment and construction activities. Both companies have a proven track record of success in the marine and offshore industry.

With an extensive experience of more than 50 years, Zwagerman provides equipment and management for the offshore industry, ports and construction companies. The company offers a wide range of cranes, such as lattice and telescopic crawler cranes, mobile port handling cranes and floating (marine) cranes.

The speciality of the organisation is the development of unique machines for demanding works. Zwagerman has successfully participated in the building of several crane-barges, pipelines and the salvage and clearing of shipwrecks.

Working together

The Concordia Group is known to be an innovative and an open-minded partner in inland shipping, sea shipping and offshore. Its core business is the design of new seagoing vessels, as well as turnkey projects, completely managed by Concordia.

Its expertise also lies in the building and rebuilding of pontoons, accommodation vessels, temporary living quarters and mobile offshore units.

“The main focus of the joint venture was to build Conquest MB1 and then to go with it out into the market,” explains Mr Huibregtse. “Concordia recently built the heavy duty flattop barge, completely ballastable and with 20 tons per m2 permissible deck pressure.

“Zwagerman had developed a completely new concept of mobile offshore crane, the Spacelift MC 35000 DLS, which can be independently mounted on a barge, without further adjustments in the structure of the barge. Zwagerman just needed a base for the crane – and Concordia’s barge offered it.

“Cranes of this size and standard tend to be used only on permanent platforms – but the minimum permissible deck pressure of the barge makes it suitable for placement on any location of a crane,” he says.

Capacity and mobility

The idea, he explains, is that Conquest Offshore will rent out the newly developed barge, capitalising on the demand for large offshore barges with heavy lift crane capabilities. The Conquest MB1 is currently situated in Vlissingen (Flushing), Netherlands

and is available for charter to the company’s clients worldwide.

The state-of-the-art crane barge has exceptional working characteristics and is equipped with an accurate and fully automated ballast and trim (anti-heeling) system. Its dimensions are 136m x 36m x 8m, it has a minimal deck pressure of 20 tonnes per m2 and a free deck space of 3700m2 for 9000 tons of cargo. The crane has a power of 2 x 1100 kW and has a specially designed dynamic load system (DLS). Four cylinders on the back of the crane are placed with bogies on an 18-metre diameter ring. The cylinders pull when a load is lifted and push when the crane is stationary to balance the counterweight. The capacity of the DLS is a maximum of 1400 tons and the counterweight is 450 tons. Together with the base structure of the crane this generates enough moment of force to complete heavy lifts. With the universal base and the heavy-duty double boom of 63–75m, the lifting capacity of the crane can reach up to 24,000 ton metre (tm), ideal for the installation of offshore wind foundations, and decommissioning or salvaging shipwrecks. The boom can easily be changed to a 97m or even 124m single boom. “The logistics required for installing a wind turbine, for example, are enormous and the current systems used are cumbersome, but for the Conquest MB1 they are ideal. It has the capacity required and the mobility – and it can work in harsh environments. By cooperating with us, customers will find installation is more efficient and therefore competitive.”

Looking ahead

Conquest MB1 is currently based at Flushing, Netherlands and offshore lifting trials with cargo or supply vessel Abis Dublin have just been successfully completed. Deugro, Amasus Shipping and Conquest Offshore have joined forces to perform feeder lifting trials, offshore from the Netherlands.

Between them they have developed a plan for the installation of offshore wind park components. The unique approach of this plan is the use of Conquest MB1, which will stay on location and will do the actual installation work on site.

“Flushing is the wind turbine capital of the world and so for now we will remain based there,” says Mr Huibregtse. “But we can see opportunities in places like China, India and West Africa in the future, which is why we will eventually think about other flattop crane barges.

“We see potential in the oil and gas industry, and in decommissioning. We are already seeing huge interest in Conquest MB1, have a variety of works planned for 2013 and expect demand to be increased as such from 2014 onwards, so that we start building more floating crane barges.” n