Simon Møkster Shipping said Wednesday it had secured a contract extension for its Stril Server offshore vessel, working at the Hywind Tampen floating wind project in the Norwegian section of the North Sea.
"Equinor exercises all options for the Stril Server working on the Hywind Tampen project. The Stril Server is performing W2W services and related SOV commissioning work," the Norwegian offshore vessel owner said, without providing details on the length or value of the contract extension.
Equinor said back in July that Hywind Tampen floating wind farm in Norway would become operational in 2022, becoming the world's largest floating wind farm. However, it will not be as big as originally planned, at least not in 2022, due to steel quality issues found in four of the 11 turbines.
Equinor is developing the 11-turbine 88MW floating wind farm to power its five offshore oil and gas platforms in the North Sea off Norway, Snorre A, and B, and Gullfaks A, B, and C. The turbines will be able to deliver 35% of the platforms' electricity demand.
©Equinor
Equinor said in July that the seven first Hywind Tampen turbines would come on stream this year as planned, with the final four to be installed next spring.
The seven first turbines will deliver electricity to both Gullfaks and Snorre and have a capacity of about 60 MW, which, event without the four turbines to be installed in 2023, will make Hywind Tampen the world’s largest floating wind farm. Currently, the world's largest wind farm is Grupo Cobra's 50MW Kincardine wind farm in the UK.
Hywind Tampen partners are Equinor (operator), Petoro, OMV, Vår Energi, Wintershall Dea and INPEX Idemitsu Norge AS.
The wind farm will be located about 140 km off the Norwegian coast in water depths between 260 and 300 meters.