Colombo Dockyard gets major conversion work on new OSVs

Monday, 17 December 2012 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Colombo Dockyard was the ideal option for Nautilus Marine Acquisition Corp. Greece/Vega Offshore, Norway, the owners of Offshore Support Vessels SK Line 71 and 72, who were looking out to carry out charter requested modifications to the brand new deliveries from China.

The two 1678 GRT OSV vessels built in Fujian Funing Shipbuilding Heavy Industry – Fu´an, China, were placed in Colombo soon after taking delivery.

The main project scope was to install a new stern thruster on the fabricated skeg and carry out all electrical and mechanical installations on these two OSVs. This modification was coupled with other repair requirements such as blasting and painting of 12 tanks to S.A 2.0 standard, conversion of the existing piping systems related to the above tanks, removal of the anchor handling winch, removal of the wire reel, shifting the existing tugger winches by one metre, removal of the shark jaw and towing pins, removal of stern roller, and converting the space of the stern roller to a fresh water tank.

Once the decision was taken to place the vessel in Colombo, prefabrication of the skeg commenced prior to arrival of the first vessel in Colombo. Planning and coordination of the project was handled by Priyanka Cooray – Ship Manager, with full support from the production departments.

Colombo’s flexibility was evident when the vessel’s arrival date was shifted due to changes in the delivery dates from the Chinese yard. Colombo Dockyard, keeping to its customer-centric decision making, was able to re-schedule the program in order to facilitate suitable drydocking with minimal effect on the schedule. The SK Line 71 was accommodated in Drydock No. 4 (125,000 DWT) drydock while SK Line 72 was taken into Drydock No. 3 (9,000 DWT).

Colombo’s strategic geographic position also played a part, as the vessel delivery was taken from China and two OSVs were placed one after other in Colombo for the conversion, and soon after the sea trials, the two vessels proceeded to Brazil, where they will be on-hire to the Petrobras charter.

Given the successful completion of the projects on SK Line and previously on OSV. Kailash and OSV. Shegar, Colombo Dockyard has managed to create a niche as a specialist shipyard with the necessary capability to cater to repair requirements / conversions for vessels moving into the Petrobras charter in the Brazilian waters.

The project management was assigned to Thome Offshore Management Ltd. Singapore. Toni Ang, Senior Technical Superintendent was based in Colombo to during the total project. Georgios Aivaliotis – Senior Technical Manager represented the owners from Nautilus Marine Acquisition Corp. Greece. The project was carried out meeting the classification society requirements of American Bureau of Shipping. The local agent for the vessel during this call were M/s. McLarens Shipping Ltd.