Ship of the Year 2010 - Skandi Aker

Aker Solutions' new deepwater intervention vessel, Skandi Aker, has been announced winner of the coveted international "Ship of the Year 2010" award. This is a prestigious award instituted by the major Nordic Shipping magazine – “SKIPSREVYEN”. The candidates are nominated by the readers of the magazine but the final election is done by a Jury consisting of former MD of Norwegian shipowners’ association and MD of the Sales & marketing organization of Norwegian shipyards. The award was presented to Stig Antonsen, VP Marine in Aker Solutions, by Rikke Lind, state secretary of the Norwegian Ministry for Trade and Industry, at the SMM 2010 trade show in Hamburg, Germany.

There are many types of ships categorized by the material built and their usage. Broadly, some of the categories are : Aircraft carriers, Amphibious vessels, Container ships, Dredgers, Floating storage vessels, Ice breakers, Landing crafts, Missile boats, Research vessels, Sailing vessels, Bulk carriers, General cargo carriers, Tugs, Fishing vessels, Naval ships, dry cargo carriers of various sizes including Handymax and Panamax; Oil tankers of various size including Aframax, Suezmax, VLCC & ULCCs.

The winner of this year’s award – Skandi Aker is a multi purpose vessel l designed to perform riser-based well intervention services - along with subsea construction and installation activities - at water depths up to 3000 metres. This is an advanced vessel of its kind, other existing well intervention vessels are limited to 0perations at approximately 800 metres water depth. This ship can perform deepwater well intervention services that oil companies previously needed drilling rigs to conduct. This type of vessels have reduced the time and are very economical claims Aker Solutions.

Skandi Aker is the first intervention vessels to classified according to DNV.s WELL-Notation, meaning the vessel is able to take oil on board. As a result, the vessel can perform well-testing and clean-up, flaring off hydrocarbons through a flare at the stern. The vessel can also perform through-tube rotary drilling with coil and downhole motor, and managed-pressure drilling. The 157 metre long ship is the largest monohull subsea well intervention vessel built, boasting a large deck space, heavy capacity subsea cranes, excellent sea-keeping performance, all interventions using dynamic positioning system, and 18 knots transit speed. She is equipped with a module handling system and a 400-ton AHC crane. Being a multifunctional vessel, Skandi Aker can perform sub sea installation and construction work when not performing well internvention work.
Skandi Aker has been built at STX Norway Offshore's yard in Søviknes, Norway. The vessel is owned by Norwegian company DOFCON ASA.


With regards - S Sampathkumar