Jan De Nul Orders Offshore Installation Vessel Les Alizés
At WindEurope Offshore 2019, Jan De Nul Group announced the order of Les Alizés, a floating installation crane vessel from the CMHI Haimen shipyard in China. This news comes just six months after the investment announcement for the offshore installation vessel Voltaire.
Together with the Voltaire, this new vessel will be in a super-size class of its own, capable of building the latest generation of offshore wind farms. Les Alizés, scheduled to be operational in 2022, is equipped with a crane that has a lifting capacity of 5,000t and equally impressive lifting heights.
Les Alizés will mainly be used for the construction of offshore wind farms, but with her impressive crane she is also extremely suitable for decommissioning offshore oil and gas platforms.
Thanks to her dimensions and impressive lifting and loading capacities, Les Alizés will be able to load out, transport and install multiple units of the largest and heaviest wind turbine foundations. In addition, as a crane vessel that floats, it will be able to install heavier and larger foundations into deeper waters and in more challenging seabed conditions.
This vessel investment is a response to the global trend within the offshore wind energy sector to design and install increasingly larger wind turbines. This new generation of turbine can be more than 270m high, with blades up to 120m long and sit on foundations up to 2,500t. The offshore installation vessels currently available on the market are experiencing great difficulties in installing these new turbines and their heavier foundations, with their enormous dimensions and installation weights.
The vessel will be built at a shipyard of China Merchants Industry Holdings, located in Haimen, Nantong City, China. As a subsidiary of China Merchants Group, this shipyard has a proven track record in supplying marine and offshore facilities which gives Jan De Nul Group sufficient confidence to award this contract to CMIH.