North Star Group has won a £90 million service operations vessel (SOV) contract for the third phase of the Dogger Bank Wind Farm, off the coast of Yorkshire. The contract is set to deliver an additional ship with North Star’s new hybrid-powered renewables fleet design to support offshore wind technicians in the field.
This will be the fourth craft that North Star has been contracted for by Dogger Bank’s partners Equinor, SSE Renewables, and Eni this year. That contract was worth an estimated £270 million. Each of the SOVs has been contracted on a 10-year agreement with three additional one-year options. The contract will create about 40 new full-time positions in crewing and onshore-based jobs.
“Securing the final SOV contract required for the Dogger Bank Wind Farm development for the next decade is an honor and testament to the hard work and dedication of the team at North Star and our talented technology partners. We are fully committed to supporting the local supply chain and communities in the U.K. where possible and are actively recruiting around 170 personnel from across the country to support this complete vessel package,” said North Star CEO Matthew Gordon. “We’d like to take this opportunity to thank Equinor, SSE Renewables and Eni for their enthusiasm and confidence in our SOV service, which significantly shifts the dial on sustainability, comfort, safety, and workability. These hybrid-powered vessels are futureproofed for tomorrow’s zero-carbon emission marine fuels and the superior home-from-home living space will provide the offshore wind technicians exceptional respite from the often-harsh North Sea environment.”
North Star’s new SOVs are high performance, sustainable vessels capable of supporting net-zero goals and using fuels of the future. They provide comfortable, floating-hotel style accommodations to offshore wind-turbine technicians and a centralized logistics hub to travel to and from work each day across a “walk-to-work” gangway or transfer via a smaller daughter craft vessel. The SOVs are also configured to handle cargo and act as a warehouse.
The Dogger Bank wind farm is expected to generate enough renewable electricity to supply 5 percent of the U.K.’s demand, equivalent to powering 6 million homes.
All four SOVs are being built at VARD’s Vung Tau shipyard in Vietnam.
More info www.northstarrenewables.co.uk
