MacGregor's expanded winch portfolio wins offshore order from Marco Polo
MacGregor, part of Cargotec, has secured a contract with the Marco Polo Shipyard Pte Ltd with their facilities in Batam, Indonesia, to supply deck equipment for two 76m, 9,000kW anchor handling tug supply (AHTS) vessels with bollard pulls of 150 tonnes, to be constructed for Marco Polo Marine. There are options for two further vessels, the company said in its press release.
"This contract represents an important milestone for MacGregor demonstrating the advantages we now can offer to our customers with our expanded portfolio comprising both MacGregor and Hatlapa products," says Francis Wong, Vice President, Segment Sales, Offshore.
"This powerful new combination of technologies, products, personnel and services has strengthened our position in the deep water anchor handling market and is one of the main reasons we were awarded the contract."
Each shipset includes a high pressure windlass/mooring winch, tugger winches, capstans, storage reels and hydraulic power packs, along with a telescopic provision crane. Each vessel will also be equipped with a 300-tonne low pressure anchor handling/towing (AHT) winch with a 400-tonne brake holding capacity, along with its hydraulic power pack. The AHT winches would be fitted with friction clutches which allow to quick release within three seconds which significantly increase the safety during anchor handling and towing operation.
The first shipset is scheduled for delivery between March and June 2015; the associated vessel is expected to be delivered in the first half of 2016. The shipset for the second vessel should be delivered between July and September 2015, with the vessel due for delivery in the second half of 2016.
"As a result of our expanded product range we are now able to provide three different technologies to meet any particular requirements, namely low pressure, high pressure and electric variable frequency drive (VFD) solutions to the worldwide anchor handling market."
"In this case, the customer wanted the robust low pressure hydraulic technology, underpinned by MacGregor's global life time support network to maintain its worldwide operations. In addition to the supply of equipment, we will work as a system integrator and solution provider to meet our customer's operational and life cycle requirements."
Since the start of the year, MacGregor has seen a strong demand for medium-sized AHTSVs of 8,000 to 12,000BHP in the Asia-Pacific region; this is due to deep water growth opportunities, particularly in Malaysia waters. Francis Wong says that with its comprehensive product range and global support network, MacGregor is now ideally placed to serve this growing market.