Denmark’s Semco Maritime has won a 10-year service contract from Siemens Gamesa for the 288 MW Butendiek offshore wind farm in the German North Sea.

The work covers operations and maintenance on the wind farm located around 32 km from the Island of Sylt near the German-Danish border. Project operations will mainly take place from Havneby at the Danish Island Rømø, starting in January 2024.

The wind farm has been operational since 2015 and comprises 80 Siemens 3.6 MW wind turbines. Semco Maritime will be responsible for balance-of-plant service workstreams, including maintenance and inspections above water on the offshore substation and its foundation as well as the 80 wind turbine generator foundations.

“This is another important milestone in our efforts to boost Semco Maritime’s service business in the renewables space,” said Jacob Øbo Sørensen, senior vice president of renewables at Semco Maritime.

orth America’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) export capacity is set to more than double by the end of 2027 with the addition of new LNG export terminals in Mexico and Canada, as well as the expansion of existing LNG capacity in the United States, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said.

Ten projects across the three countries will contribute to the expansion of LNG export capacity to 24.3 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) by the end of 2027, up from 11.4 billion (Bcf/d) currently.

In the United States alone, five LNG export projects are currently under construction, accounting for a combined capacity of 9.7 Bcf/d. These projects include Golden Pass, Plaquemines, Corpus Christi Stage III, Rio Grande, and Port Arthur, with the first exports expected in 2024.

Mexico is also making strides in LNG exports, with three projects currently under construction. Fast LNG Altamira offshore and onshore, as well as Fast LNG Lakach, are set to contribute a combined capacity of 1.1 Bcf/d. The Altamira project consists of three units, with the first unit planned for offshore and the other two to be installed onshore at the Altamira LNG regasification terminal. Fast LNG Lakach will be installed offshore of Veracruz, Mexico. The Energia Costa Azul LNG terminal in Baja California is also undergoing construction, with a Phase 1 capacity of 0.4 Bcf/d and a proposed Phase 2 capacity of 1.6 Bcf/d.

Canada is not far behind, with two LNG export projects currently under construction in British Columbia. LNG Canada, with an export capacity of 1.8 Bcf/d, is expected to begin service in 2025, while Woodfibre LNG, with an export capacity of 0.3 Bcf/d, is scheduled for 2027. Additionally, the Canada Energy Regulator has authorized 18 more LNG export projects, with a combined capacity of 29 Bcf/d.

The expansion of LNG export capacity comes as the Panama Canal, which opened to LNG carriers with its expansion in 2016, faces a freshwater shortage that will limit the capacity of the waterway as long as the drought in Panama continues.

Maritime players plotting pathways to data collaboration with digital projects in line with new BV-backed research study.

Digital technologies are increasingly being leveraged by shipping players to facilitate data collaboration among different actors in areas like ship design, vessel performance and port calls as a new Thetius research study backed by Bureau Veritas (BV) shows this will be vital to drive decarbonization, an OrbitMI-hosted panel heard at the recent Shipping Insight event in the US.

“Data-powered, collaborative innovation is the essential ingredient that can further accelerate the transformation of the industry. We believe that digitalisation is a foundation for innovation as it allows for faster, richer and more efficient collaboration,” BV Marine & Offshore’s VP Digital Solutions & Transformation Laurent Hentges states in the foreword to the Thetius report, entitled Common Interest.

Several data-sharing initiatives under way across shipping were highlighted by the panel that demonstrated the traditionally conservative industry is slowly breaking down barriers to collaboration in an area that is seen as highly sensitive due to issues such as competition and data protection.
US-based RoRo operator ARC is applying digitalization across three main areas – safety, quality of life for seafarers and efficiency – in a rapid push towards vessel automation through installation of mesh wifi networks with sensors for an Internet of Things (IoT) onboard, as well as use of AI-based voyage optimization and automated reporting to ease the workload for captains, ARC’s SVP head of operations Fred Finger said.

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