Lamprell was founded in the UAE by Steven Lamprell in the ‘7O’s as a marine engineering company, refurbishing and then later building jack up drilling rigs for the oil and gas industry. Lamprell has now become a successful and major name in WTIV builds.
The step from building jack up drilling platforms to building self elevating installation vessels for the wind industry is not so huge, but to take the step and succeed immediately is impressive.
Since entering the offshore wind energy sector in 2007 Lamprell have built 2 MSC Gusto design NG 2500 WTIV’s for UK company Seajacks Ltd. The Seajacks Kraken and Seajacks Leviathan have succeeded in both the wind energy and the oil and gas sectors. Based on this success in 2010 Seajacks went a step further and ordered a third but larger design to be built by Lamprell Energy.
The Seajacks Zaratan was recently handed over at the Hamriyah yard and is also a design from MSC Gusto, the NG5500. Offshore wind related work at the Lamprell Energy yard is continuing further with Fred Olsen Windcarrier contracts for the Brave Tern and Bold Tern. The Brave Tern was launched in May this year while the identical NG9000 sister vessel, Bold Tern, is due later this year.
During an interview at the Global Offshore Wind RenewableUK event in London recently, Nigel McCue, Lamprell CEO , told Offshore WIND that the company had orders up to 2016 from all sectors of the offshore industry. He envisages that there is room in the WTIV market for over 40 vessels world wide, half of which are already built or on order, The size of the vessels is also bound to increase.
Lamprell Energy’s yards are also open for completing vessels or refurbishing existing vessels that have been built in other yards.
Dick Hill