Sparks Fly at U.S. Gulf Coast Shipyards

摘要

Sparks are flying off of the towering hull of a 302-foot-long Platform Supply Vessel hull under construction inside Gulf Coast Shipyard Group's cavernous 10-acre building hall in Gulfport, MS. "These vessels are engineering intensive," explains William "Billy" S. Smith Ⅲ, Gulf Coast Shipyard Group's Vice President. "We would have never built these LNG vessels without an in-house engineering department. A traditional offshore vessel has about 2,000 points that you have to monitor during construction," says Smith. "These vessels have about 5,000." The vessel is one of five dual fuel PSVs in various stages of construction at the Mississippi shipyard, with the sixth, the lead ship in the class, the Harvey Energy, nearly ready for delivery. The Harvey Energy was running through operational tests for loading and burning Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) as fuel. When delivered, the Harvey Energy's Wartsila dual fuel 34DF engines will be capable of operating on either LNG or die-sel, pioneering the use of LNG as a marine fuel in the U.S.