Royal Boskalis Westminster N.V. (Boskalis) and Royal Volker Wessels Stevin N.V. (VolkerWessels) have formed a joint venture to carry out offshore cable installation.
Boskalis and VolkerWessels each hold a 50% stake in the joint venture Visser & Smit Marine Contracting Holding B.V. (VSMC), through Boskalis Offshore Subsea Contracting B.V. and VWS Civil and Offshore Constructions B.V., respectively.
VSMC will have two cable-laying vessels at its disposal, the Stemat Spirit and Ndurance.
The Ndurance is expected to be delivered at the end of this year. Both vessels are fitted with DP2 equipment, with a cable turntable capacity of around 5000-tonne.
Boskalis and VolkerWessels have already been working together for some years on a project basis, for example on the installation of power cables for sizeable offshore wind farms such as Nordsee Ost and Meerwind in Germany and Westermost Rough and Humber Gateway in the United Kingdom.