Semco Maritime to add new accommodation blocks on ‘Maersk Guardian’

Semco Maritime has entered into an agreement with Maersk Drilling for the expansion of accommodation rig Maersk Guardian, which will be inserted at various fields in the Danish part of the North Sea from September 2016.

The company says that the DKK three-digit million order comprises installation of new accommodation blocks as a supplement to existing quarters on the jack-up rig.

Head of Semco Maritime’s rig division, Senior Vice President Lars Skov Christensen, said: “It is very encouraging that an internationally respected operator such as Maersk Drilling chooses us. That confirms that our strategy is competitive in a challenged rig market.”

He also added: “Our shipyard-in-a-box concept is a figurative concept of flexibility, which allows us to swiftly relocate our rig engineers to where the work is. We can move out in a matter of a few hours or days, depending on the type of the assignment or the geographical location of where we are going.

“The concept simultaneously minimizes our fixed costs without compromising quality,” Lars Skov Christensen states.

According to Semco Maritime, Maersk Guardian is currently located in Frederikshavn, where it will be situated during the entire refurbishing period. The largest part of the Semco order – construction of the new accommodation blocks – is performed in Gdansk in Poland.

The entire accommodation block unit is then sailed to Frederikshavn and installed on the rig, Vice President and main responsible for the project Nikolaj Vejlgaard explains: “We have never constructed an accommodation block this size before.

“The sheer size makes it impossible for us to perform the work at our own facilities in Esbjerg, and we have therefore placed the assignment with our skilled collaboration partners in Poland, said Nikolaj Vejlgaard.

The 142-room accommodation block weighs 560 ton and is set to arrive at Frederikshavn in August with subsequent final installation of the entire block a couple of weeks later.

Maersk Guardian has a leg length of 157 meters and was constructed in Japan in 1986. It is designed for all-year operation in the North Sea.