Management consolidation for wind operators

Richard Pargeter of Green Marine Solutions told MJ, “We recognise smaller vessel operations will soon be in danger of being eaten up by the bigger fish, if only because they don’t have a support team back on land to deal with things like Health and Safety paperwork, or even finding crew. Very often they can only afford to have themselves as management, and they are usually busy doing one project or chasing the next.”

Green Marine’s idea is to come in to do the management jobs, putting an owner through all the compliance and verification checks. “We will do the procedures and make sure the boat and crew meet all the requirements, on a day rate, so you don’t have to keep us on and you can get everything delivered to you at a cost-effective price. Its one way of owners to get rid of a large headache”, said Mr Pargeter.

As the marine management team contracted by Fluor to plan, initiate and manage the Marine Coordination Centre on the Greater Gabbard wind farm, the newly formed organisation has a lot of experience of what went well and what could have gone better.

Mr Pargeter explained that packaging marine coordination, management and equipment procurement under one umbrella will help enormously. “You can have between eight and 12 marine coordinators on a wind farm construction site, and you are dealing with multiple supply chains, so there’s a lot of time and therefore money dissipated with both tools and people getting confused and lost.”

“We saw that we could save a lot of trouble by offering a complete one stop shop that will take on everything from vessel suitability, hire and surveys and bring in an offshore asset management and personnel tracking system.”

Gathering the different layers under one heading, including the different subcontractor management operations, will cut down a number of inefficiencies.

Green Marine will also help with all the other associated subjects, both large and small, such as generator maintenance, offshore refuelling, and asset maintenance, the latter encompassing items such as life jackets, PLB’s and radios. It will even assist in developing port infrastructure and support vessel operations.