Chouest invests in mooring assistance/escort tugs

摘要

Offshore vessel owner Edison Chouest Offshore (ECO) has ordered 13 heavy-duty mooring assistance and escort tugs based on designs from The Netherlands-based Damen. The tugs will be deployed on two projects for which ECO recently won contracts. The vessels will be built using ECO's network of five shipyards in the US. The first of the contracts that ECO won earlier this year is for a new Corpus Christi-based liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal. The agreement is for the supply of four escort tugs, with a bollard pull of 80 tonnes, to operate at the terminal in Texas, which is currently under construction. The Damen tugs will be of the well proven azimuth stern drive (ASD) type, an escort/mooring version of the ASD 3212 design. More recently, ECO has won a long-term contract in Alaska. ECO is taking over escort-response duties out of Valdez, Prince William Sound, from July 2018, for which it will require nine high powered escort tugs.