Hotchya Marine Design. New technical capabilities to explore the Arctic. Maritime Market Magazine # 4(42), 2012 (Ocean and shelf exploration)

Hotchya Marine Design. New technical capabilities to explore the Arctic

Anton Valerin

In the second half of the XXI century, the reserves of oil and gas in such traditional production regions as the Persian Gulf, the Middle East and Siberia will be depleted. And the demand for energy resources will increase many times. The development of the hydrocarbon riches of the Arctic is the only opportunity to resolve the energy problem of humankind.

The main question that stands out is whether we have enough strength, required technical and technological resources for the implementation of such a large-scale project.

Space and sea depth exploration have a lot in common and the main shared thing is that things have to be done in unfriendly environments. And in terms of complexity, technologies for the Arctic offshore exploration keep abreast with those for space exploration. Machinery for the both environments has to be state-of-the-art and conform to certain criteria of reliability.

Hotcha Marine Design Company designed such a “smart” and reliable supply vessel for Arkticheskaya self-elevating floating drilling rig (SEFDR).

A feature of project 22370 lies in its functional capabilities. The vessel is intended for supplying drilling consumables and equipment to floating drilling rigs, making the towing operations, releasing and pulling the anchors of floating drilling rigs, being on emergency and rescue duty and even for responding to oil spills.

It has to be noted that for the Russian shipbuilding industry such a vessel is an unprecedented project in terms of complexity level and it could be handled only by world class professionals. This vessel is of the strengthened ice class. There have never been similar developments in international practice.

The construction of this vessel will involve a number of innovation technologies and it will be fitted with state-of-the-art equipment. The design draft of the vessel is 6.5 meters with a length of 87.45 meters and a molded depth of 10.0 meters. The speed of the vessel is 16.8 knots. The cruising capacity of the vessel is 30 days.

The engineering novelty of this project was deservedly awarded the Gold medal and Diploma of the International Forum Marine Industry of Russia - 2012 in the Technologies for Advanced Marine Equipment and Systems nomination.

The eminent contest commission chaired by A. L. Belyberdin, the Executive secretary of the Marine Board of the Government of the Russian Federation, highly praised the uniqueness, novelty and economical feasibility of the suggested project. According to the award panel’s opinion the SEFDR supply vessel is already in high demand during natural resource development operations at sea oil-and-gas bearing basins, for example, such as the Arctic shelf deposits.