http://www.solutionsmagazine.co.uk/
COMMERCIAL SHIPBUILDING in Singapore is heavily geared towards offshore, with most yards not building rigs engaged in building anchor handling tug/supply and support vessels.
The facilities of the two big government-controlled conglomerates, Keppel and SembCorp Marine, cater mainly for offshore.
Keppel is set to complete more than 40 projects this year and has recently secured orders for a derrick pipelay vessel and an ultra-deepwater multi-functional support vessel. But jack-ups and semi-submersibles rule.
“We have the capacity to take on more jack-up and semi-submersible projects for delivery in 2012,” Keppel Offshore and Marine managing director and chief operating officer, Tong Chong Heong, told Solutions.
Demand for jack-ups and semi-submersibles looks healthy over the next few years, he said, particularly for mobile rigs, where demand is likely to outstrip the current market supply.
Late last year Keppel launched an offshore and technology centre to complement its other technology development arms. Together with Netherland’s Marine Structure Consultants and Mærsk Contractors, it has developed the DSS21 proprietary design.
Mærsk Developer is claimed to be the most technically advanced semi-submersible deepwater drilling rig to be designed and completed in Singapore to date.
The DSS21 features a dynamic positioning system capable of attachment to a prelaid mooring system and operating to depth of 3,000 meters and of drilling down to 10,000 meters.
Turnover from Singapore yards grew 33% to S$13 billion in 2007. Data source: ASMI
The design is said to be suited for conditions offshore Brazil, West Africa, Gulf of Mexico and Southeast Asia.
Jurong Shipyard rival SembCorp Marine has developed its own ‘transverse skidding’ method in combination with the ‘load-out and mating-in-dock’ technique.
These optimize yard capacity to meet the urgent demands of a robust market, SembCorp Marine explained, which makes it possible for the yard to deliver more than two semi-submersible rigs a year.
Jurong is also active in commercial shipbuilding. It has delivered a series of 2,646-teu container ships built to the yard’s Jubilee design, including the latest, Wan Hai 317, for Taiwan’s Wan Hai.
Two have been built for Reederei F Laeisz of Germany.
The Wan Hai 317 is described as “one of the largest and most sophisticated container ships designed and built in Singapore”. The 213m-long Panamax beam vessel can carry 1,688-teu on deck and 958-teu in the hold. Equipped with 400 reefer points, it is said to be capable of high homogenous container intake of more than 1,960-teu at 14t/teu. Service speed is up to 23kt, with the hull specially designed to minimise propeller-induced vibration.
However, with offshore-related jobs taking up more and more space and time, commercial shipbuilding may take a back seat at Jurong.
Singapore Technologies Marine, catering to the defence industry, is building small container ships and has won orders for vehicle carriers.
On the heels of launching its second ro-ro vessel in August built to transport Airbus A380 aircraft components, it has laid the keel for Singapore’s first ever ro-pax at Benoi yard.
To be built for France’s Louis Dreyfus Armateurs, it was originally designed to carry 930 passengers, but capacity will be increased to 1,300. Delivery is scheduled for the first half of 2010.
Demand for oil is pushing the frontiers of technology, said Denis Welch, CEO of Drydocks World SEA.
It will be able to carry trailers and cars, with a freight lane length of 1,500 meter and about 2,290 meters of car lane. Singapore will continue to build specialised and high-value vessels, but its priority is clearly offshore.
“The demand for oil is pushing the frontiers of technology,” Denis Welch, CEO of Drydocks World South-East Asia, headquartered in Singapore, commented to Solutions.
Fresh from its acquisition of Pan United Marine and Labroy Marine, which have given it established facilities in Singapore and nearby Batam Island in Indonesia, Drydocks World is expanding with a new yard in Batam modelled on the Dubai Maritime Centre.
Its Pertama yard in Batam is building a 180m multi-purpose special construction vessel Osa Goliath for Handel Maritime. Repair continues to boom in Singapore, although fewer vessel arrivals in 2007 reduced its share in terms of turnover.
Yards have continued to snap up FPSO conversions that are becoming ever more sophisticated and multi-functional.
Sembawang Shipyard, part of the SembCorp Marine group, recently secured a S$99 million contract to convert a tanker into a dynamically positioned FDPSO with extended well testing drilling capability for Brazilian offshore provider Dynamic Producer, part of the Petroserv Group. Approximately 4,700 tonnes of steel will be used.
Accommodation will be provided for 106 people. Scheduled for delivery late 2009, the FDPSO will have crude oil drilling and storage capacity of 300,000 barrels.
Article from marine technology magazine Solutions is reproduced by courtesy of Fairplay.
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