Tidewater boats arrive

To support the oil rig West Aquarius while it drills the exploration well Aspy D-11,  BP hired Halifax based Horizon Maritime to provide three vessels. Horizon's own supplier Horizon Star has been working for some time now to deliver riser pipe to the rig as it was mobilized in Newfoundland.

This week the rig (which is a self-propelled deep water semi-submersible) arrived at the drill site and the two other suppliers arrived in Halifax today (April 11) for the first time. Although they were initially based in Mulgrave, the drill riser and pipe is coming through Halifax.

Both of these suppliers have been bareboat chartered from Tidewater, one of many supplier companies with a large fleet of laid up boats in its 300 vessel fleet. ( It is estimated that about 36% of the world's Platform Supply Vessels are unemployed).

First to arrive this morning was Troms Sirius, a 4210 grt ship built by STX OSV. The hull was built in Tulcea Romania and finished by STX Soviknes in Sovik, Norway in 2012. It has diesel electric propulsion driving twin azimuthing drives, and is fitted with all the mod cons including Fire Fighter 2 and dynamic positioning.  It was registered in Canada March 9.

Tied up at pier 9C it was loading conventional drill pipe when I happened by, but there is still considerable riser pipe on the dock to be delivered to the rig when needed.(Riser pipe is encased in white buoyancy material whereas the drill pipe that actually goes down the drill hole is exposed steel. Small diameter pipe is drill pipe, large diameter is casing pipe.)

This afternoon the second PSV, Lundstrom Tide, arrived. A vessel of the same class,  it was built in 2013, and has slightly different stats of 3943 grt, and 9,430 hp driving twin z-drives.

It tied up at pier 25, likely awaiting its turn at pier 9C. It was registered in Canada April 4.

The drilling program is expected to take 60 days and is taking place about 250 km offshore in the Scotian Basin.. 

.