ROV deployment ships near completion in Malta

Mansal-18 ROV support ship is in Malta for upgrading. The 1,550 dwt ship is 265 ft long and 50 ft wide, with a draft of 14 ft. Racal Survey will take delivery of the ship in March and will hire it out for construction and pipeline work offshore U.K. and Norway. It will carry two heavy-work ROVs.

Racal's Sealion heavy-work class ROV has a 100-hp power unit and is capable of vertical lifts of as much as 300 kg at depths as great as 2,000 m. Racal's new ROV ships both will deploy two Sealions at first, but one will carry a Sealion plus a more powerful new Sea Serpent ROV when it is introduced this spring. Photo courtesy of Racal.

Racal Survey Ltd., Chessington, U.K., will this month take delivery of the first of two vessels converted for deployment of remotely operated vehicles (ROVs). Both ships will be capable of deploying two ROVs simultaneously.

Racal has chartered the two ships under 5-year contracts from Mansal Offshore W.L.L., Doha, Qatar, which is completing major upgrades of the ships in the port of Valetta, Malta.

Racal will use the ships to support offshore construction and pipeline work in the North Sea, in the U.K.'s West of Shetland area, and in the Norwegian Sea off central Norway.

Mansal-18, formerly the diving support vessel Ragno Duo, will be completed first. Mansal-19, formerly the diving support vessel Ravello, will be delivered to Racal roughly 6 weeks later.

Ship capabilities

Alan Nicol, deputy general manager, Racal Survey, said the ships each will have two heavy-work class ROVs on board. Mansal-18 will be used to deploy the first Sea Serpent ROV, which Racal will launch this spring.

The two ROVs on Mansal-18 will be capable of being deployed simultaneously, one through the moonpool and one from a crane over the side. Mansal-19's ROVs will both be deployed over the side with cranes.

"The vessels," said Nicol, "will be kitted out with everything we use for ROV operations, whether the clients pay to use it on a particular job or not. We expect them to earn £12,000-15,000/day for construction support work."

The ships will both carry newly built ROVs: Mansal-18 will initially carry two 100-hp Sealion ROVs, but one of these will be replaced with the new 200-hp Sea Serpent. Mansal-19 will carry two Sealions.

Three Sea Serpent ROVs are to be built by Racal this year. The Sea Serpent will be able to lift 1.2 metric tons vertically, compared with 300 kg for typical ROVs, at depths to 2,500 m.

Sea Serpent has four thrusters with a total 200-hp power rating, to provide comparatively great vertical lifting power and to enable automatic control of pitch and roll during operation.

Mansal is spending more than $6 million on each of the vessel upgrades, which required major refitting of equipment and engines as well as reconfiguration and installation of helidecks.

Mansal-18 is due for delivery to Racal on Mar. 19 while Mansal-19 is due for handover on May 30. Mansal also operates two jack up rigs, six supply vessels, and seven support vessels, mainly under charter to Qatar General Petroleum Corp.

Long-term contracts

Nicol said that, in 1994, Racal bought Singapore-based Techno Transfer Industries, an ROV builder and contractor. Now Racal hires out 40 ROVs worldwide: 20 from Singapore, four in the U.S., two off Australia, and 14 in the U.K. and Norway.

Of Racal's ROVs, 35% are deployed for drilling rig support, 50% for construction support, and 15% for production support from platforms.

Long-term leasing of ROV ships marks a departure for the company.

Nicol said long-term chartering enables customization of the vessels used. Mansal-18, for example, has had a moonpool installed, thus expanding the ship's operational weather window.

"Though construction support work is seasonal, ROVs are hardly ever out of the water on charter. This work is harder on the equipment and better for the pocket than rig support, but it would be difficult to make money using spot-charter ROV support vessels."

Racal built seven ROVs in 1996 and six in 1997 and is currently doubling machine shop capacity in Singapore. This will not double ROV output, however, because much of the new capacity will be devoted to the manufacture of spare parts for working ROVs.