The pipelayer Sapura Rubi was delivered by Royal IHC, in 2016. (Photograph: PAS Publicaties)
TOPFLIGHT PERFORMANCE BY DUTCH SHIPYARDS AND SUPPLIERS by Paul Schaap, PAS Publicaties
As in the previous year, Dutch shipyards and ship repair yards and their suppliers completed a series of spectacular projects in 2016. Their achievements once again reflect the ability of Dutch companies to retain a leading position in the world when it comes to designing and fabricating very special ships and innovative equipment for use on board. Over the past few years, Royal IHC has attracted most attention in the new shipbuilding sector, not only by designing and fabricating innovative dredging vessels, but also state-of-the-art pipelaying vessels. Since 2014, on behalf of Subsea 7, the Seven Waves, Seven Rio, Seven Sun and Seven Cruzeiro were successively fabricated and handed over, together with the Sapura Diamante, Sapura Topázio, Sapura Ônix, Sapura Jade and Sapura Rubi, for Sapura Navegação Maritima. Based on the same design, the Sapura Esmeralda was also completed, in Brazil. This impressive series of pipelaying vessels was subsequently deployed laying pipes in deep water for Petrobras, off the coast of Brazil. For Royal IHC, this was the largest shipbuilding order ever received. All of the ships for
Subsea 7 were equipped with a Huisman pipelay tower, while the Sapura vessels were equipped with a tower from IHC Engineering Business. In July 2016, Royal IHC received an honour award from Sapura Navegação Maritima, for the successful delivery of the pipelaying vessels. The yard subsequently received new orders from Shanghai Salvage for the supply of an integrated 550-tonne reel-lay system, and from Maersk Oil for the engineering, procurement and construction of a tandem mooring system and offloading system for a floating storage and offloading vessel due to be deployed in the Culzean field in the British sector of the North Sea. Finally, Royal IHC recently presented an innovative ship type for inter-array cable laying in windfarms, and a new type of heavy-lift jack-up vessel. 2017 NETHERLANDS SUPPLIERS CATALOGUE
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