The Netherlands-headquartered BigLift Shipping has been involved with some large-scale wind energy cargo deliveries for leading OEMs over the past few months. Newbuilds scheduled for delivery later in the year are tailored to the demand of renewable energy shippers.
The heavy lift shipping line mobilised BigLift Barentz to move 87 Vestas V150 wind turbine blades from Motril in Spain. The blades were destined for projects in Germany and Sweden. Separately, Happy Buccaneer transported 21 V162 Blades from Motril to Antwerp.
The line moved 150 GE Haliade-X nacelles for the Saint-Nazaire offshore wind project in France earlier this year. BigLift has recently performed several voyages with offshore towers for the same project. In Seville, Aveiro and Bilbao (Spain), several Spliethoff P8 and P14-type vessels loaded cargoes of Haliade 150 wind turbine towers to be discharged in Saint-Nazaire.
In an ongoing programme to ship onshore wind turbines into the Great Lakes (North America), BigLift has been moving various cargoes with its Happy R-type vessels. Two voyages were performed from Tuticorin (India) to Ogdensburg (New York State) with GE equipment; two further voyages were executed on behalf of Vestas from Altamira (Spain) to Bay City (Michigan) and Erie (Pennsylvania).
BigLift Shipping said that two newbuild heavy lift ships scheduled for delivery later this year – Brouwersgracht and Bloemgracht – are “supremely suited to support the offshore wind contractors in their installation of offshore wind projects”. Each will feature DP2 seakeeping capabilities, a pair of 500-tonne lifting capacity mast cranes and will be able to house 60 seafarers onboard. “A large open hold makes them very flexible in the possibilities for hold and deck layout for specific project requirements,” the line added.
