Cargo Business Techwire

Friday, October 10, 2014

Crowley Singapore office receives 2 heavy-lift deck barges

Crowley Maritime’s solutions group announced its receipt the first two of potentially four, new heavy-lift, ballastable deck barges (HDBs) for use by clients in the Asia-Pacific region.

These new barges will be contracted and managed from the company’s Singapore office, and Crowley says they will primarily support regional customers in the oil and gas mining, engineering, construction and procurement management industries that are increasingly launching large-scale onshore and offshore projects.

The new 400-foot-long, 120-foot-wide HDBs, named HDB 01 and HDB 02, are moored in Batam, Indonesia, according to the statement. They have 25-foot side shells, which provide both the capacity and deck strength (up to 4,200 pounds per-square-foot) needed to accommodate larger drilling and production units used for deep-water offshore energy exploration and development.

Designed with more robust ballast systems, the new Crowley barges can deal with high tidal ranges found in the region’s load and discharge ports and have higher internal strength which allows tolerance when ballasting to the seabed, fully loaded.

The ABS-classed barges, with an approximate deadweight capacity of 20,000 metric tons, were designed by Crowley's Seattle-based subsidiary Jensen Maritime and were constructed in China by Seabridge Marine Contractors Ltd/Jiangsu Yangzijang Shipbuilding Co., Ltd.

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