MHI Vestas awards walk-to-work contract for Borkum Riffgrund II wind farm

MHI Vestas Offshore Wind has awarded Vroon Offshore’s walk-to-work vessel VOS Start with a contract to support the commissioning phase of the Borkum Riffgrund II offshore wind park from spring 2018.

The subsea support vessel VOS Start is fitted with a 50-tonne active-heave-compensated crane, a Barge Master motion-compensated gangway for offshore personnel transfers, and hotel-standard accommodation and office facilities for 60 passengers.

When commissioned in 2019, Borkum Riffgrund II will be one of the largest offshore-wind power plants in Germany with a capacity of 450MW generated by 56 V164 8.0MW turbines, supplying enough energy to power up to 460,000 households.

VOS Start was purpose-built to support offshore operations in the renewable energy industry and walk-to-work projects in the offshore oil and gas industry.

A sister vessel, VOS Stone, will enter the market in the coming weeks.

It comes after Vroon Offshore’s platform-supply vessels VOS Patience and VOS Partner started a charter for TechnipFMC in Malta.

They will supply pipelines and subsea materials to construction assets offshore in the Mediterranean for two, non-consecutive phases in 2017 and 2018.