ACE in place for geotechnical investigations
An ACE 18.5 ton SWL Hydraulic Drum Winch similar to the winch that is to be manufactured for Bluestone.
The UK’s ACE Winches has secured a £1.6m contract from Bluestone Offshore for the design and manufacture of two comprehensive winch packages for use on the offshore support vessel, Greatship Maya.
Each winch package comprises an 18.5 ton SWL hydraulic drum winch, 300kW containerised electric Hydraulic Power Unit (HPU), a central control cabin, interconnecting pipework package and associated wire rope package.
The Bluestone project is being wholly managed by ACE Winches at its manufacturing facility at Towie Barclay Works In Aberdeenshire and all equipment will be comprehensively FAT tested on ACE Winches’ 750 ton capacity hydraulic test bed facility prior to delivery to Singapore in March 2011.
The complete winch system is scheduled to be deployed on the offshore support vessel, Greatship Maya before it departs Singapore at the end of May 2011. The vessel, which is on charter to Bluestone Offshore and partner, GC Rieber Shipping Asia Pte Ltd, is being upgraded for use in the deep waters of the Atlantic Ocean offshore Brazil.
The two winch packages are designed for launching and recovering a seabed frame, fitted with geotechnical investigation equipment through the ship’s moonpool for working in operational water depths of up 2,500m. Each winch is designed to carry 2,700m of steel wire rope and the complete package has built-in heave compensation line tensioning and a computerised controls package.
The CEO of ACE Winches, Alfie Cheyne, described the contract as a valuable manufacturing order for the company. He said, ‘This contract award is a result of the commitment shown by ACE Winches in delivering exceptional service through our Hire Equipment division reacting quickly to deploy a 120 ton winch package by air freight to Singapore. 2011 is, once again, forecasted to be an excellent trading year for ACE Winches. Bluestone signifies an important stepping stone for ACE Winches in gaining a firmer foothold in the Asia Pacific region.’
The company’s Hire Equipment division continues to trade exceptionally well internationally, despite the recent global recession. ACE Winches’ Hire Division is currently completing a £5m contract to install a topside and jacket for Petronas/MMHE in Turkmenistan. ACE Winches has deployed, from Aberdeen, a total of 20 large winch packages with a total gross tonnage of over 1,000 tons, which was shipped out by sea freight from Aberdeen during August 2010, travelling through the Russian canal system before docking in South Caspian, 30 days later.
ACE Winches Hire Division was recently awarded a £1.5m contract with McDermott’s in Saudi Arabia for oil and gas operator, Saudi Aramco, installing a 5km offshore communications cable. ACE Winches delivered a special traction winching system, pulling a floating synthetic rope to deploy the cable from the offshore operations vessel to the beach.
The company continues to trade well, having broken its projected turnover for 2010 by £2m, closing off the year at £18m turnover from its Turriff base. During 2010, ACE Winches opened its new operational base at Dusavik in Stavanger, Norway. Again, excellent trading results have resulted in three full time Norwegian staff being employed and ACE is currently deploying assets valued at over £650,000 to support specialist wire rope spooling activities and vessel bollard pull tests.
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