Norway's Edda Wind and Seattle-based Foss Maritime are readying a joint venture to order newbuildings to support construction of US wind farm projects.
One unidentified tender could be awarded in early 2022, allowing the partners to firm up the deal and sign orders.
The tie-up, Edda Foss Wind, is a renewal of an effort announced in 2019 between Foss and Edda Wind's founding company Ostensjo Rederi, which never went live.
"The joint venture is still not in operation. We have done this in order to be able to participate in tenders for US projects," said Edda Wind chief executive Kenneth Walland.
Foss, the majority shareholder in the project, has a fleet of more than 200 tugs and barges. Its owner, Seattle's private Saltchuck Group, controls a number of US shipping ventures.
Foss business development vice president Paul Gallagher, who heads the US side of the venture, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Edda Wind is an offshoot of Haugesund-based offshore owner Ostensjo Rederi, which has brought in fellow shareholders including Wilhelmsen New Energy, John Fredriksen and Idan Ofer.
Walland said US wind farm contractors want service operation vessels (SOVs) that have identical specifications to Edda Wind's newbuildings.
"But these will be double the price of European-built ships," Walland told TradeWinds. He added that European prices are only about 10% above Asian shipyards for his company's SOVs and CSOVs.
Edda Wind has six SOVs and commissioning service operation vessels (CSOVs) on order at Spanish shipyards to serve European offshore wind projects, with up to four optional units to be declared.
Under the US Jones Act and similar laws that protect domestic shipping from foreign competition, vessels for the Edda Foss Wind project will not only have to be US-built, but US-crewed, operated by a US company and no more than 25% beneficially owned by the non-US partner.
"The ownership will be in full compliance with the Jones Act," said Walland.
"We will assist the joint venture in design, in contracting, in training of crew, for example. But the ownership will be in compliance with US law."
He said he has been in discussions with "more than a handful" of US shipyards that he finds capable of building the ships he wants, including yards in the Gulf, the Great Lakes and the US west coast regions.
Walland did not identify the tenders in the works but said: "There is a tender ongoing for early next year, and there are more in the pipeline."
Edda Wind's partner Foss has been named previously as a participant in the Vineyard Wind 1 wind farm project off Massachusetts, which the Biden administration approved in May.
In the project, Foss will use its Jones Act-qualified vessels to transport components from New Bedford in Massachusetts to the wind turbine installation vessel (WTIV), Belgian shipowner DEME Offshore's Denmark-flag, 15,966-gt Sea Installer (built 2012).
US cabotage rules strictly forbid the use of non-qualified tonnage for the transportation of merchandise between one point in the US and another, but the foreign-flag WTIV is allowed to install turbine components on US projects as long as other ships bring them.
