NOTE: This article was updated on 13 and 14 January to add further information shared by Vattenfall and Louis Dreyfus Armateurs.
Vattenfall has awarded three contracts to Louis Dreyfus Armateurs for the provision of service operation vessels (SOVs) in Germany: one for the jointly operated DanTysk and Sandbank offshore wind farms and one for the Nordlicht projects, with a third optional SOV for future wind farms.
The SOV agreements, signed in January 2025, are valued at EUR 563 million in total, according to a contract award notice published on the EU public tenders website.
Vattenfall issued an invitation to tender in December 2023, with the procedure divided into two lots and the offshore wind developer looking to enter into contracts with either two parties under Lot 1 or with one under Lot 2. In the contract award notice published on 9 January 2025, Vattenfall states that after evaluation of the tenders, the scenario in Lot 2 provided the best value defined as per tender material.
In a press release on 13 January, Louis Dreyfus Armateurs (LDA) said that under the long-term contracts, the company would build, own and operate up to the three SOVs for Vattenfall’s offshore wind farms.
The first SOV will enter service in mid-2027 on the DanTysk and Sandbank offshore wind farms and the second vessel will commence operations before the end of 2027, servicing the Nordlicht 1 and 2 wind farms. The third, optional SOV is intended for Vattenfall’s future projects in the North Sea.
The vessels will be 90 metres long with a breadth of 19.60 metres and will feature precise DP manoeuvring capabilities and increased flexibility during offshore operations, according to LDA. The SOVs will be equipped with a walk-to-work (W2W) gangway located close to the vessel centerline, a 3D crane for cargo transfers, and accommodation for 96 people.
The SOVs will be registered under the French flag and have been specifically designed to reduce fuel consumption and emissions during both operations and transit, the France-based vessel operator says.
“We are proud to establish this new partnership with Vattenfall, recognizing our expertise in designing and operating purpose-built SOVs”, stated Edouard Louis-Dreyfus , President of LDA. “This reinforces our ambitions in the global offshore wind industry, and our commitment to decarbonation.”
Vattenfall noted on 13 January that the company currently mainly uses crew transfer vessels (CTV) at its offshore sites but that for wind farms built farther offshore, the much larger service operation vessels were better suited as they are built to stay on the site for several days.
“After a thorough tender process we are really happy to have concluded these 10-year contracts and starting a long-term cooperation with Louis Dreyfus Armateurs” , said Pavlo Malyshenko , Head of Offshore Generation at Vattenfall Wind. “The vessels will support our mission of safe, reliable, and sustainable operation and delivery on cost efficiency ambitions in Sandbank and DanTysk, as well as the coming Nordlicht 1 and 2 wind farms. This will strengthen competitiveness of our far offshore wind assets and our position as one of the leading wind developers and operators in Northern Europe.”
The 288 MW DanTysk offshore wind farm, located some 70 kilometres west of the island of Sylt, comprises 80 Siemens Gamesa 3.6 MW turbines that have been in operation since 2014. Sandbank offshore wind farm, in operation since 2017, also has a 288 MW capacity and its 72 Siemens Gamesa 4 MW turbines are spinning some 90 kilometres west of Sylt. Both wind farms are owned by Vattenfall (51 per cent) and Stadtwerke München (49 per cent).
The Nordlicht offshore wind project is being built in the German North Sea and consists of two separate wind farms located 85 kilometres north of the island of Borkum: Nordlicht 1 with a capacity of around 980 MW and Nordlicht 2 with around 630 MW. The offshore wind project will feature 112 Vestas V236-15.0 MW wind turbines , with 68 of them to be installed at the Nordlicht 1 site.
Nordlicht is owned by Vattenfall (51 per cent) and BASF (49 per cent), with Vattenfall developing and building the project on behalf of the partnership.