Equinor has awarded Simon Møkster Shipping with a contract for service operations vessel (SOV) services for the Hywind Tampen floating wind farm project in Norway.
Under the contract, Simon Møkster Shipping will provide its vessel Stril Server for Hywind Tampen, starting in the second quarter of 2022. The vessel will be deployed on the project for 150 days, with an option to extend its stay.
According to the vessel operator, this is one of the first SOV contracts serving floating wind turbines and the first SOV/W2W project for Møkster on the Norwegian Continental Shelf.
Developed by Equinor together with its Snorre and Gullfaks partners, the 88 MW Hywind Tampen floating wind farm will be the first of its kind to power oil & gas platforms.
Eleven Siemens Gamesa 8 MW turbines are expected to cover about 35 per cent of the annual power needs on the five platforms Snorre A and B and Gullfaks A, B and C in the Norwegian North Sea and reduce emissions from the Gullfaks and Snorre fields by more than 200,000 tonnes per year.
Located about 140 kilometres off the Norwegian coast in water depths of between 260 and 300 metres, Hywind Tampen is scheduled to be operational in 2022.
Component fabrication works for the project are already underway. In April, Aker Solutions reported that it had completed the first part of the construction of the concrete foundations at its yard in Stord, Norway.