Chinese Firm Leases Jack-up Vessel that can Install 20MW Wind Turbines

Huadian Heavy Industries (HHI) has signed a charter agreement for a jack-up vessel that will be able to install wind turbines of up to 20MW. The company is one of China’s largest offshore wind EPCI contractors.

According to HHI’s announcement of the charter agreement on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, the vessel that the company will lease for three years is called Huadian Boqiang CIMC Julong 01.

The vessel, currently under construction at CIMC Raffles Yantai shipyard and expected to be delivered in 2023, has been leased from Boqiang Heavy Industry Group for three years for a total of CNY 648 million (a little over EUR 90 million), with an option for the extension of the charter agreement.

The contract comes a little less than a year after Huadian Heavy Industry, Boqiang Heavy Industry Group, and Yantai CIMC Raffles Offshore Engineering signed an agreement for the “3060 Series Offshore Wind Power Installation Vessel (3060 WTIV) Plan”, a project revolving around development of series of “high-end, efficient, low-cost” offshore wind installation vessels capable of handling wind turbines of up to 20 MW for international projects.

With the signing of the agreement in April last year, CIMC Raffles started building the first in the series of these vessels.

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According to the shipbuilder, the vessel features 120-metre-long legs making it able to work in water depths of up to 65 metres.

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“The flagship 3060 jack-up, which features 120-metre-long legs making it able to work in water depths down to 65 metres, is slated to be delivered in the first quarter of 2023 from CIMC Raffles, a portside construction yard historically used to build offshore oil & gas platforms and vessels”, CIMC Raffles said in April 2021.

The Chinese shipbuilder is currently busy with one more vessel set to handle wind turbines of up to 20 MW as the Dutch offshore construction company Van Oord ordered a new jack-up in October 2021. The jack-up to be built for Van Oord will be able to run on methanol, which will reduce the vessel’s CO2 footprint by more than 78 per cent.