Activity News

To advance President Trump’s national strategy for securing America’s critical mineral supply, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has initiated the process for a potential mineral lease sale in federal waters off the coast of Virginia. This action—only the third of its kind in over three decades—marks a step toward unlocking the vast mineral potential of the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf and reinforcing the nation’s economic and strategic independence.BOEM oversees 3.2 billion acres of the Outer Continental Shelf, an offshore area that exceeds the size of the U.S. landmass.

Jumbo Offshore has signed two contracts for the Transport and Installation (T&I) of Transition Pieces (TPs) for an upcoming offshore wind farm development.Jumbo Offshore will install the TPs using one of its two DP2 heavy-lift vessels during the project campaigns.In addition to T&I, the awarded scope includes full management and operation of the marshalling yard.This includes responsibility for receiving the TPs from the transport vessel at the quayside, transferring them to the storage area…

Scottish engineering and consultancy firm Wood has secured a ten-year contract with NextDecade to deliver maintenance solutions at Rio Grande LNG, a major natural gas liquefaction and export facility under development near Brownsville in Texas.Wood will provide comprehensive maintenance services to support operations at the approximately 1,000-acre site.NextDecade expects the liquefaction and export facility will deliver secure and affordable energy through the safe and efficient…

Norwegian offshore vessel owner Solstad Maritime has sold its Normand Clipper construction support vessel (CSV) to Global Maritime Group.Global Maritime Group, the current charterer of the vessel, declared the purchase option for the Normand Clipper, with the deliver of set to take lace at the end of the firm contract period on June 1, 2026.The vessel has supported Global Marine Group’s worldwide cable-laying operations since 2020.Solstad Maritime said it recognize a gain on the sale of approximately $10 million to be reflected in the second quarter 2026 accounts.Built in 2001…

DEME has secured three contracts for the installation of monopile foundations, inter-array cables, and the export cable at the BC-Wind offshore wind farm in Poland.The combined contracts are valued between $174 million and $350 million (€150 million and 300 million).BC-Wind, developed by offshore wind firm Ocean Winds, a 50-50 joint venture between EDP Renewables and ENGIE, is located approximately 23 km off the Polish Baltic Sea coast.With a planned capacity of up to 390 MW, the wind farm will generate clean electricity for around 500…

A consortium of GE Vernova and Singapore’s Seatrium has secured a major contract from Dutch-German grid operator TenneT to deliver the BalWin5 offshore grid connection, a 2.2 GW high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission system designed to bring North Sea wind power to Germany’s electricity network.BalWin5 is expected to provide enough renewable electricity to supply about 2.75 million households, forming part of Germany’s strategy to accelerate offshore wind deployment and…

Ocean services provider DeepOcean has secured an extension to its existing frame agreement with Equinor for the provision of subsea inspection, maintenance, and repair (IMR) services.As a part of the renewal, DeepOcean will deploy specialized IMR vessels, along with comprehensive subsea services, throughout 2026 and into 2027.The scope of work also includes onshore engineering and project management services for various subsea operations.With this contract, DeepOcean will deliver uninterrupted IMR activities for Equinor from 2006 to 2035…

Senegal plans to nationalise the Yakaar-Teranga gas project, operated by Kosmos Energy and estimated to be one of the world's largest discoveries in recent years, with a view to meeting domestic gas needs, its energy minister said.Kosmos Energy, which has a 90% stake, became the operator of the Yakaar-Teranga gas field in 2023 after BP decided to exit. Kosmos' licence for the field runs out in July 2026, a company spokesperson said when asked about the minister's comments.Kosmos shares fell on Wednesday in New York, hitting a five-year low.

BP, Chevron and Shell were among the top bidders on Wednesday at the U.S. government's first sale of oil and gas drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico since 2023.The auction, which ended with $279.4 million in high bids, was the first of 30 mandated by U.S. President Donald Trump's tax cut and spending bill, which he signed into law in July.His administration's plans for offshore leasing are a significant departure from that of his predecessor, President Joe Biden, which had planned…

Bowdun Offshore Wind Farm, planned for 44 km off Stonehaven in North East Scotland, has submitted the application for planning permission in principle for the onshore infrastructure of the Project to Aberdeenshire Council. The submission covers the elements from the landfall point near Benholm, underground cable corridor, onshore substation and proposed connection to the planned Hurlie substation at Fetteresso Forest, where the wind farm-supplied power enters the National Grid.

ABB has verified what it calls a major advancement in vessel Dynamic Positioning (DP) technology, following successful Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) proving trials and sea trials on board the new wind turbine installation vessel (WTIV) Norse Wind.By integrating ABB Ability Marine Pilot Control - a ship control system that unifies dynamic positioning, maneuvering, and transit functionalities into one intuitive interface - with Azipod propulsion units, the vessel showcases distinctive advantages of system-level synergy.Meeting all performance expectations…

French offshore services provider Bourbon has signed a five-year contract, with extension options, with ExxonMobil Guyana (EMGL) to provide maritime services in Guyana.It will start in the first quarter of 2026, with the commissioning of the large platform supply vessel (PSV) Bourbon Calm and covers the transport of products essential to offshore operations in one of the world's most dynamic oil basins.The discovery of oil fields in 2015 has made Guyana one of the fastest-growing offshore operations…

Solstad Maritime (SOMA) has secured multiple new contracts for several construction support vessels, that will be employed in the North Sea and Brazil.The contracts are for Normand Navigator, Normand Cutter, and Normand Jarstein CSVs.The combined firm period of these project related contracts is approximately 175 days, with an additional 150 optional days.The start of the contracts is scheduled for December 2025 and January 2026, with the combined gross value of the firm contracts…

Eastern Shipbuilding Group (ESG) completed and redelivered HOS Rocinante, a first-of-its-kind U.S.-flagged Service Operation Vessel (SOV) converted for Hornbeck Offshore Services.The vessel marks a milestone in the evolution of the U.S. offshore service fleet to be future-ready for both the offshore wind and petro-energy sector demands for broadly capable marine support vessels.Originally built by ESG as an offshore supply vessel, HOS Rocinante unerwent extensive conversion at ESG’s Allanton and Port St Joe Shipyards in Panama City…

A federal judge on Monday struck down an order by U.S. President Donald Trump's administration to halt all federal approvals for new wind energy projects, saying that agencies' efforts to implement his directive were unlawful and arbitrary.Agencies including the U.S. Departments of the Interior and Commerce and the Environmental Protection Agency have been implementing a directive to halt all new approvals needed for both onshore and offshore wind projects pending a review of leasing and permitting practices.Siding with a group of 17 Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia, U.S.

Dong Fang Offshore (DFO), one of Asia’s largest offshore wind service providers, has signed a major shipbuilding contract with Norwegian yard Westcon for a new subsea and cable lay vessel (CLV), set for delivery in 2027.Westcon will take over and complete construction of a large cable lay vessel already under build.DFO said the order supports its recent growth and replaces installation capacity lost in Taiwan after DeepOcean exercised an option to keep the Orient Adventurer working in Europe until 2028…

Equinor and its Brazilian subsidiary Rio Energy have started commercial power production at the Serra da Babilônia Solar facility in Brazil. Strategically co-located with the existing Serra da Babilônia Wind, this represents the first hybrid asset in Equinor’s power portfolio, comprising 140 MW of solar and 223 MW of wind capacity.Hybrid projects take advantage of the complementary nature of solar and wind resources, which generate power at different times of the day and throughout different seasons.

Seaway7, part of Subsea7, has secured a sizeable contract by Ocean Winds for the work on the BC-Wind offshore wind project in Poland.Seaway7’s scope of work includes the transport and installation of 26 transition pieces and an offshore substation with offshore activity expected to commence in 2027.The BC-Wind offshore site is located in the Baltic Sea, approximately 23 kilometers off the Polish coast, and will comprise 26 wind turbine generators.When fully completed, BC-Wind will have a total capacity of up to 390 MW…

Norwegian technology company Vissim has secured a contract with a Qatar-based oil and gas operator to deliver a vessel collision avoidance system at an undisclosed oil field offshore Qatar.As part of a three-year agreement, Vissim will provide specialized software that enables a fully digitized and user-friendly overview of vessel traffic at the offshore field.The core of Vissim’s technology is a specially designed software platform which, through input from millions of data points such as the automatic vessel identification system (AIS)…

Belgium’s Jan De Nul is commissioning what it calls its most advanced offshore wind installation simulator, a digital twin of its vessels Les Alizés and Voltaire designed to train crews to install the latest generation of giant wind turbines and foundations at sea.The crane simulator, installed at the company’s Aalst office, features a seven-meter-wide dome offering a 360-degree view and allows operators to rehearse complex installation operations at heights exceeding 150 meters.Wind turbine tip heights now reach 300 metres…

Integrated Wind Solutions (IWS), through its subsidiary IWS Fleet, has secured additional charter commitments for its Skywalker-class commissioning service operation vessels (CSOVs), closing gaps in its near-term schedule and expanding its multi-year backlog.IWS Fleet said it filled a gap in employment for the IWS Sunwalker in the first quarter of 2026 by securing a 70-day fixed charter extension. The vessel will begin its first charter shortly and now holds back-to-back firm…

Crude oil production in the United States is booming, reports Poten & Partners in its weekly opinion.According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, U.S. Field Production of Crude Oil reached 13.8 Million barrels per day (Mb/d) in September 2025, a remarkable recovery since bottoming out in 2008 below 5 Mb/d.The shale oil boom was primarily responsible for this turnaround. The decision to allow crude oil exports from the U.S. at the end of 2015 also contributed, because it made U.S. crude accessible to the international market. This export access converged U.S.

Dajin Heavy Industry and Germany’s Briese Schiffahrt have signed a memorandum of understanding to develop offshore wind marshalling services at a new terminal in the Port of Cuxhaven in Germany.The agreement, signed on November 26, aims to establish an international offshore wind industry hub on more than 20 hectares of newly built port area in Cuxhaven.The initiative will use Dajin’s fleet of deck carrier vessels and Briese’s global shipping network to support the handling and…