3rd April 2008 – MAN Diesel has won a major contract worth around EUR 70 million for 28 of its type 32/40 marine diesel engines and associated propulsion systems. Customers are the MLC Barging Pte Ltd shipping company, based in Singapore, and the MLC Shipbuilding Sdn Bhd, based in Malaysia. The engines will provide power aboard 14 so-called Anchor Handling Tug and Supply vessels (AHTS), used for provisioning, moving and anchoring offshore installations such as oil and gas drilling platforms. The ships will be built at the Chinese shipyard MLC Tongbao Ship Building Co Ltd and are due to enter service in 2010 and 2011.
These special purpose vessels are approximately 80 metres long and will be equipped with powerful and reliable engines from MAN Diesel in order to cope with the severe weather conditions often encountered round offshore installations, e.g. in the North or Barents Seas. Similarly, the ships require high power reserves for tasks such as towing a drilling platform to its location and anchoring it there. The four strongest AHTS ships in the contract will thus be equipped with two MAN Diesel 12-cylinder vee configuration type 12V 32/40 engines, giving each ship a total output of some 12,000 kW /16,000 hp.
MAN Diesel will be providing not only propulsion power for the ships but also their precision of movement. To achieve high manoeuvrability, the special-purpose ships will be fitted with bow thrusters. Both thrusters and main propellers will be supplied by MAN Diesel. A high degree of steerability is important in AHTS ships: when provisioning and anchoring offshore installations, the ships sometimes approach the platforms to within a few centimetres.
Moreover, the oil companies are venturing into ever more northerly regions and to greater ocean depths in their extraction activities. In doing so they make use of the largest drilling platforms ever constructed which translates into strengthening worldwide demand for bigger and bigger ATHS ships with more and more powerful engines.