Ecosse Subsea Systems (ESS) have been awarded a £3 million contract by an international infrastructure group to design and build a 1500-ton carousel and associated spread.
The carousel will be used for the storage of spare cables required for UK offshore windfarm projects and will be located at a strategic north east port for fast deployment should the need arise.
The carousel will have the capability to be upgraded to 2000 tons and will be designed by ESS engineers at their Banchory headquarters and partially manufactured at subsidiary firm Masfab in County Durham.
ESS has built up expertise in the construction and use of carousels which are used for specialist subsea projects and this deal follows the acquisition by Bibby Offshore Limited of an 800-ton ESS carousel which had earlier been deployed by a major utility company on a UK windfarm construction project.
Mo Petrie, ESS operations director, said: “This will be the second storage carousel we have built but over the last few years we have developed our expertise in the design and construction of large carousels traditionally used in seabed operations.
“The carousel will be designed so that the capacity can be upgraded to store additional cables on demand. The contract also includes provision for operating the carousel on behalf of the client and the training of their personnel.
“The client is a major player in large-scale infrastructure projects and is active on a number of UK offshore wind projects, which dovetails with our own diversification in to the renewables sector.
“Our design and engineering experience is being used not only in asset building for major renewables projects like this, but elsewhere in the supply chain where we are prominent in providing seabed preparation and route clearance services in the early stages of offshore windfarm construction.”
Keith McDermott, ESS commercial director, added: “Demand from clients to buy equipment has increased substantially because we build it from the perspective of asset owners. In addition to this latest carousel, we have built five others and own four SCAR trenching systems.”
ESS were recently awarded a subsea trenching contract by leading European offshore specialist JD-Contractor A/S for the Kriegers Flak windfarm offshore Denmark.
The Aberdeenshire company has just completed a £5 million seabed clearance project on behalf of DONG Energy on the Race Bank Offshore Windfarm located off the Norfolk coast and is currently engaged in route clearance and trenching projects on behalf of Prysmian Group on the 70-turbine Wikinger offshore wind farm in the Baltic Sea.