On December 28, the 65,000 DWT semi-submersible vessel “Xiangtaikou” built by Guangzhou Shipbuilding International Company Limited (GSI), a subsidiary of China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC), was named and delivered to COSCO Shipping Specialized Carriers Co.
The ship measures about 231.1 meters in overall length, 46 meters in width, 10.9 meters in design draft, 13.6 knots in speed and 27.5 meters in diving draft. It is equivalent to the height of nearly 10-storey building, and the cargo deck area is equivalent to 1.2 standard soccer field size, which has stronger loading capacity and greatly improves the cargoability and economy.
The vessel is equipped with 4 sets of 4,000 kW medium voltage generator sets, with a range of 20,000 sea miles. Also, the vessel caters for 49 people to live and work on board. The maiden voyage will undertake the transportation and installation of offshore platforms in the Mazan oil field in Saudi Arabia.
The vessel is equipped with world advanced power positioning system and large capacity ballast system. It can realize floating from the maximum diving depth within 5 hours. Equipped with intelligent ship system, it can collect data and provide decision-making reference for navigation and operation according to sea conditions and ship status. With a higher level of automation and safety, it can greatly meet the high-precision requirements for the installation and transportation of offshore engineering equipment and the intelligent demand for ship navigation and operation.
Semi-submersible ship is known as “sea forklift”, it uses the principle of ballast water discharge to realize the ship’s dive and float, to load inseparable large components and offshore equipment in the sea. Only a few countries in the world have the ability to build them, and they are typical of the “great powers”.
It is reported that this type of vessel is the latest generation of GSI’s semi-submersible series, representing the development direction of advanced semi-submersible vessels.
As the first China’s shipbuilding enterprise to build advanced semi-submersible vessels, GSI has successively designed, built and delivered 10 series of semi-submersible vessels ranging from 20,000 to 100,000 DWT, which accounts for nearly 50% of the global market share of the same type of vessels, and among them, 8 are built elaborately for COSCO Shipping Specialized Carriers.