Dong Fang Offshore Buys Pacific Constructor

Dong Fang Offshore (DFO), a subsidiary of Hung Hua Construction, has bought the subsea multi-purpose vessel Pacific Constructor from Swire Pacific Offshore to strengthen its fleet serving the offshore wind sector in Taiwan, as well as in the Asia Pacific region.

Pacific Constructor, renamed to Constructor 1, is on its way to Taiwan, where it will be deployed immediately on an offshore wind project, which the new owner left unnamed.

According to a press release from Dong Fang Offshore, the company will use Pacific Constructor as a Service Operation Vessel (SOV) for offshore wind construction activities, based out of the Port of Taichung. DFO has already begun the process of reflagging the vessel to Taiwan flag and will later equip it with a walk-to-work system and crew transfer vessel (CTV) landings.

The vessel, built in Norway and delivered in 2014, can accommodate 102 wind farm technicians and crew. It has a diesel-electric DP2 propulsion configuration, a 250 MT active heave compensated main crane, and an aft deck of 1,300 m2.

With the addition of Pacific Constructor, Dong Fang Offshore now has a ten-strong fleet dedicated to offshore wind, along with twelve third-party vessels.

“This acquisition is a key enabler in Dong Fang Offshore’s ambitions to become the leading marine renewables contractor in Asia Pacific. We look forward to working with developers, turbine manufacturers and contractors to deliver Taiwan’s goal of 15.5 GW of offshore wind capacity by 2035”, said Polin Chen, Operations Director of Dong Fang Offshore.

In January, DFO took delivery of two new Fast Crew Supplier (FCS) 2710 vessels from Damen Shipyards, adding to the existing two FCS 2710s and an FCS 2610 in its crew transfer vessel fleet. Several months prior to that, Ørsted signed CTV contracts with Dong Fang Offshore (Hung Hua Construction) to charter five vessels and form a Taiwan-flagged CTV fleet for the construction work on the Greater Changhua 1 & 2a offshore wind farms.