GustoMSC jack ups wind turbine installation in Norway

With about 300 employees, GustoMSC is part of the US-based NOV group, with a total of about 32000 employees.

NOV is a supplier of equipment for the energy sector in the widest sense, and within this group, GustoMSC specialises in designing offshore vessels and supplying related equipment such as heavy-lift cranes. Globally, they are a major supplier of lifting platforms, called jack-ups in the jargon. GustoMSC has designed the vast majority of jack-ups for the offshore wind industry, which are currently in operation and under construction. These jack-ups from the Schiedam-based company have already provided installation of thousands of wind turbines and associated foundations at sea.

The company started almost 120 years ago as a shipyard and then went on to build more and more specialized systems. For example, GustoMSC designed and built the first jack-up in Europe as early as 1959. But where initially the oil and gas industry was a major customer, in recent years there has been a clear shift to customers active in renewable energy.

In this transaction to Hafvram, their responsibilities include the design of the so-called basic design, delivery of the lifting system and technical services for installation. The basic design actually consists of the construction drawings for the jack-up to be sent to the shipyard in China, CIMC Yantai. The lifting system has to be completely built in, so they deliver this in parts, and their own engineers are involved in the installation in China. So basically the Chinese shipyard is their customer. CIMC in turn is a customer of Hafvram.

The lifting system is very ingenious. Through the ‘Rack & Pinion Jacking System’, a kind of electric motor with several gears, the legs can move up and down. Once the legs are on the seabed, the jack-up can be stabilised and placed in its entirety above sea level. The system is designed to withstand loads during sailing, positioning of the legs, lifting up, heavy crane operations and storm conditions. 

Many existing jack-ups were delivered in 2012-2014. At the time,  they were developed for 3.6 MW wind turbines, but over the years they have been upgraded several times so that they can also accommodate 15-16 MW turbines. Because this market was changing so rapidly, in 2016 they also looked at the future of offshore wind with other players in the market. Based on the expectations from this study, the NG-20000X, among others, was developed. A wind turbine installation jack-up design suitable for the installation of turbines of 20MW and larger and now under construction for several customers. But they are also currently looking at designs for even larger jack-ups such as the NG-25000X so that they can remain relevant in the future when installing even larger turbines and foundations.

For the Hafvram transaction, the Norwegian company clearly chose GustoMSC's engineering combined with the jack-up lifting system for the NG-20000X design, the largest lifting system delivered to date. In consultation with Havfram, the design was adapted to Havfram's specific requirements for the future. The legs have a length of about 120 meters, the length of a soccer field. This allows them to work at sea to a depth of about 70 meters. For now, the market can move forward with this, but the rapid developments do bring challenges.

Norway's Norse Bank is financing part of Hafvram's transaction over 12 years for over €100 million. Credit insurance with a 95% cover rate has been taken out with Atradius DSB for this purpose. This allows Dutch exporters GustoMSC and Huisman to supply and De Norse Bank limits its risk on Hafvram.

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