Total takes offshore wind vessel for oil and gas ride

Total E&P Netherland, a Dutch subsidiary of the French oil giant Total, will charter the Bibby WaveMaster 1 offshore support vessel.

The ‘Walk to Work’(W2W) service operation vessel, owned by Bibby Marine Services , will start its contract with Total in April 2018 through to October 2018 with options to extend up to 3 years.

“Total made a conscious decision to explore and utilise the innovation and efficiencies developed for the Offshore Wind market and use them in the Oil & Gas market. The comfort, logistics flows and ‘access certainty’ of Bibby WaveMaster 1 were key influencers in their decision,” Bibby Marine Services said in a statement on Friday.

Total will use Bibby WaveMaster 1 to replace jack-ups and helicopters and provide W2W access to gas platforms in the southern North Sea. The vessel will provide accommodation for up to 90 pax including crew.

The vessel, built by Damen, was completed earlier this year.

The Bibby WaveMaster 1, the first of Damen’s purpose-built Service Operations Vessels (SOV) with Walk-to-Work (W2W) capability, was officially launched at Damen Shipyards Galati in Romania on March 24th.