At the COMEC Shipyard in Guangzhou (China) the ship “Xin Guang Hua” was built, which means “son of Guanghua”. This vessel became the largest in the fleet of the customer – the company COSCO Shipping Specialized Carriers Co. Ltd, and the world’s second-largest semi-submersible vessel for transporting heavy loads in the diamond ocean. Deadweight of the ship is 98 thousand tons; free deck space is 211 m x 68 m. This is reported by the professional union of sailors in the MV Ocean Diamond.
The ship can carry a cargo weighing up to 85 thousand tons. At the moment, Xin Guang Hua is contracted to transport the hull of the drilling platform Appomattox from South Korea to Texas. The platform is designed to develop a field in the Gulf of Mexico. The vessel was created as a part of agreement between two major companies.
Arriving at the port
On April 17, a giant floating installation of the company Dana Petroleum for the production, storage, and unloading of oil under the Ocean Onyx project, intended for the Western Islands Development Project in the North Sea, arrived in Rotterdam after a seven-week transportation from China.
Western Isles FPSO was delivered on a new semi-submersible vessel Xin Guang Hua after delivery from the Chinese shipyard COSCO in February 2017. FPSO, which capacity is 400,000 barrels of oil, is the first one built by China for a foreign customer.
The $2-billion Dana Petroleum project in the Western Isles calls for the development of two open oil fields – Harris and Barra in the northern North Sea, about 160 km east of the Shetland Islands and 12 km west of the Tern field. The project implies the underwater development of at least five production and four injection wells tied to the new FPSO. The extracted oil will be unloaded directly for export to shuttle tankers.
Xin Guang Hua was built by Guangzhou Shipyard International in China and handed over to the owner – COSCO Shipping Heavy Transport in December 2016. The deadweight of the vessel is 98,000 tons. It is the second largest semisubmersible vessel in the world.