Marco Polo Marine Ltd., a regional integrated marine logistics company, announced that it will build, own and operate a new Commissioning Service Operation Vessel (CSOV) to meet the rising demand for support vessels required to service the booming offshore windfarm industry in Asia, according to the company's release.
When completed in 1Q 2024, the vessel will also be the first CSOV to be designed in Asia. The Group will be funding the construction of the vessel with its existing resources and borrowings from financial institutions. A new CSOV is currently valued at about US$60 million.
The CSOV, with length of 83m and beam of 21m, is based on the latest design which has been co-developed by Marco Polo Marine and Seatech Solutions International (S) Pte. Ltd. and will be used in commissioning works during construction of offshore wind farms, as well as their maintenance operations. Equipped with the latest walk-to-work motion compensated gangway for safe personnel transfer from the vessel to the turbines, it also has a 3D motion- compensated crane to facilitate cargo transfer.
The vessel will also be equipped with state-of- the-art green technology, such as hybrid battery-based energy storage systems, that will reduce carbon emissions by up to 15%-20% and designed as future-ready, catering for methanol fuel to enable low carbon emissions.
According to Clarksons’ offshore wind support vessel report for 2Q2022, charterers for offshore wind support vessels have started to secure ships earlier and for longer due to rising concerns of a shortage of suitable ships to meet the growth of the offshore windfarm market. In particular, CSOVs have seen higher utilisation and day rates across all regions due to higher demand from both renewables and the oil and gas sector as well as a rise in prices for newbuilt vessels.
Clarksons has observed an increase in day rates for CSOV notably in the shorter-term contracts but is also starting to see a potential increase in longer term rates. According to Global Wind Energy Council’s Global Wind Report 20221, the annual global offshore market is expected to grow by 49% from 21.1GW in 2021 to 31.4GW in 2026.
Asia- Pacific region took the lead in global wind power development and accounts for 84% of the new offshore installations worldwide in 2021. Outside of China, Taiwan is one of the region’s fastest growing offshore wind markets and is expected to add 6.6GW of offshore wind capacity by 2026. Vietnam, South Korea and Japan also have ambitious plans to develop offshore wind resources, with plans to add 2.2GW, 1.7GW and 1GW of offshore wind power by 2026 respectively.
Listed on the Mainboard of the SGX-ST since 2007, Marco Polo Marine Ltd is a regional integrated marine logistics company which principally engages in shipping and shipyard operations. The Group’s shipping business relates to the chartering of Offshore Supply Vessels (“OSVs”) for deployment in the regional waters, including the Gulf of Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Taiwan, as well as the chartering of tug boats and barges to customers, especially those which are engaged in the mining, commodities, construction, infrastructure and land reclamation industries. Under its chartering operations, the Group has diversified its activities beyond the oil and gas industry to include the support of the construction of offshore windfarm projects.