Scottish shipowner North Star Renewables has revealed how its transformational deal to provide three new wind farm service operation vessels (SOVs) for Dogger Bank was more than three years in the making.
Chief executive Matthew Gordon told TradeWinds the $376m award for the UK wind farm joint venture featuring Equinor, SSE Renewables and Eni was the culmination of a strategic change of direction conceived late in 2017.
He said offshore wind power and the wider renewables sector is a "real growth industry".
"With that sort of growth in mind, it was decided that North Star should focus on that area. We took on an experienced industry individual in 2018 to start that journey," Gordon added.
North Star was previously known for its fleet of offshore emergency response and rescue vessels.
Gordon said: "We started talking to customers to get that understanding as to where we could get that winning edge."
The company used this knowledge to build on its core ship management and shipping experience.
Strategic development director Fraser Dobbie explained that North Star also spoke to wind turbine manufacturers as the key users of SOVs.
Talks included experienced suppliers within the walk-to-work industry as well, to complete the picture and make sure the shipowner was in a position to answer the questions asked by clients.
Vard case compelling
Dobbie said Norway's Vard was an obvious choice for a design partner.
"We like Vard's designs, they've got a strong reputation across OSVs. We were able to work collaboratively with the design team, they weren't trying to force an off-the-shelf solution on to us," he added.
The aim was to take what they had already designed and try to optimise it, "put the North Star special sauce over it, based on the research work we'd carried out with the clients and the turbine manufacturers," Dobbie said.
The brief included changing the logistical flow of the warehousing element of the SOV, and looking at it from the moment the cargo comes on board and then moves on to the gangway, making sure the process worked as efficiently as possible, he added.
The team also looked at gym and recreation areas, open spaces — even how the buffet system would work — in a bid to make the vessels ones its clients would want to live and work on.
"It worked really, really well. But it wasn't actually decided that we were definitely going to build with Vard until quite recently," Dobbie said.
"We ran a comprehensive competitive process. We spoke to 12 to 14 shipyards over the last 12 months to see who the best fit could be," the executive added.
Casting the net wide
"We have a long history of building vessels in Spain, so we spoke to a couple of yards there, yards across Europe, the UK and a couple in Asia. Again, Vard just really impressed us. The interface that exists between Vard Design and Vard Vung Tau is really strong," Dobbie said.
Vard has delivered 26 offshore vessels and every single one on time or ahead of time, the shipbuilder confirmed to TradeWinds.
"That's of absolutely critical importance to us, because while we've built a lot of ships since 2006 — 27 vessels — that's always been building to our own fleet, to replace an older asset or to try and grow our market position, but never against a particular long-term contract like we have with Equinor," Dobbie said.
But he added: "If you're late they can terminate you. That on-time delivery aspect was super, super important."
The vessels are due from Vard Vung Tau in Vietnam from 2023, backed by charters of 10 years plus three years of options.
40 years of experience
They will help maintain the 3.6-GW Dogger Bank A and B wind farms off the UK, the world's biggest such facility.
Gordon said North Star's strong platform of experience through 40 years of service in oil and gas operations was also a factor in winning the tender, as was its really strong safety performance.
The company's in-house management was also attractive. "All these factors combined really gave a strong message to the client that we were a serious player," he added.
"We were very clear in every aspect of the [tender] questions" and came up with "essentially a high-quality end product," Gordon said.
