ABB lands major deal for nine heavy lift vessels servicing Kazakh oil field expansion
ABB Ability™ Marine Advisory System – OCTOPUS marine software will map the safest and most efficient routes for a fleet of heavy lift vessels servicing the expansion of a giant oil field in Kazakhstan, the company said in its press release. ABB has secured a series of contracts for nine heavy lift vessels transporting modules for the Tengiz oil field expansion by Tengizchevroil (TCO).
OCTOPUS will enhance the safety and efficiency of the heavy-lift vessels carrying out the transportation work by indicating the optimal route based on weather and forecasted vessel motions. TCO has contracted China’s biggest shipping company, COSCO SHIPPING Co. Ltd., to carry out the transportation work, which will see modules weighing up to 1,800 tons moved from fabrication yards in Korea and Europe to the transshipment ports in the Black and Baltic seas. From there, the modules will be further transported to western Kazakhstan.
COSCO SHIPPING Co. Ltd. has subcontracted part of the work to its partners – NYK Group, Chung Yang Shipping, Dongbang Transport Logistics, Hanjin Transportation and CJ Korea Express – which resulted in a string of new orders for OCTOPUS. As part of the delivery, ABB will also install sensors on each vessel to generate real-time roll and motion data for both the cargo and vessel.
This information, accessible to officers on the bridge and support teams ashore, is critical to ensuring high levels of safety and cargo protection. As part of the implementation, ABB will, through its ABB Ability™ Platform, make defined data points available for the expansion project through Cloud-to-Cloud Integration, enabling TCO to monitor specific KPIs and project progress.
“Together with our partners, we have been contracted to ensure the safe and timely delivery of project modules into Kazakhstan,” said Marc Beerendonk, Chief Operating Officer, COSCO SHIPPING Heavy Transport. “We already have considerable experience of using ABB’s OCTOPUS software, as our own semi-submersible heavy lift fleet has used the system for a number of years. We look forward to taking this collaboration a step further and rolling out this highly effective technology across the heavy lift ships in the TCO transportation and logistics contract.”
“The contract demonstrates once again that OCTOPUS has become the industry standard solution for predicting and measuring motions on semi-submersible heavy lift vessels,” said Juha Koskela, Managing Director, ABB Marine & Ports. “One of the reasons for the system’s popularity is that it can be easily scaled. This means that more functionality can be added to meet the requirements of different owners and operators, as well as for specific transportation contracts.”
The deal further strengthens ABB’s leading position as a provider of integrated software solutions for semi-submersible heavy lift vessels. ABB estimates that 90% of vessels in this sector already use OCTOPUS in their operations. ABB (ABBN: SIX Swiss Ex) is a pioneering technology leader in electrification products, robotics and motion, industrial automation and power grids, serving customers in utilities, industry and transport & infrastructure globally.
