UK contractor Briggs Marine is teaming up with two Japanese companies to target Japan’s growing offshore wind industry.
It has signed a collaboration agreement with Horizon Ocean Management, a joint venture between trading giant Mitsui & Co and Japanese turbine maintenance company Hokutaku.
The agreement will see both companies provide pre-bidding development advisory services, development loss prevention services, installation support and operational strategic advisory and service provision across the offshore wind asset spectrum.
Briggs said the new venture delivers a “powerful world-class proposition to offshore wind development, loss prevention and insurance, installation and operational players”.
Briggs Marine managing director Collieson Briggs said the company continually monitors growing overseas opportunities and identified Japan as the most appropriate market to establish a presence within the rapidly evolving Asian renewable sector.
“It was clear from early discussions that Briggs and HOM shared a number of common aspirations and ideologies, the decision to establish a collaboration agreement was an easy one to make,” Briggs said.
“We are confident that HOM will be a strong player in the Japanese offshore wind market when the O&M service market reaches critical mass in the coming years and we are delighted to be adding to their suite of asset servicing capabilities.
“The opportunity to immediately support the Japanese sector by sharing the lessons we have learned in Europe was very compelling.
“Providing offshore wind strategy and advisory services, loss prevention advice and risk mitigation expertise allows us to further develop our presence across all phases of the offshore wind lifecycle,” Briggs added.
HOM managing director Nobuyuki Takagi said the European offshore wind supply chain has a wealth of marine and subsea experience via its long history in sectors such as oil and gas.
“In order to realise our national offshore wind deployment vision, HOM believes that learning from and working with the leading companies in these more advanced markets will develop and improve Japanese competence earlier, ultimately helping to establish middle to long-term local capability,” he said.
Takagi said HOM identified Briggs Marine early as “one of the best full lifecycle offshore cable experts around” and said he is "delighted to be collaborating with them in Japan".
“With a wealth of experience in offshore wind and one of the first companies to secure multi-year O&M frameworks from major offshore wind developers, we believe that our arrangement with Briggs Marine will help establish real offshore wind competence in Japan much earlier,” he added.
The collaboration agreement between both parties is effective immediately; both parties said they are actively working with customers in Japan across offshore wind development, insurance and asset installation disciplines.
