Zafiro Marine
Top-tier solutions
Zafiro Marine is a provider of specialist offshore support vessels to the oilfield services market.
The company delivers best in class market-leading vessels, which are engaged in the oil, gas, and renewable energy sectors, to the benefit of its clients. The newest of these, ‘Sampson’ was delivered in 2010, when it joined a fleet of vessels including ‘Goliath’ and ‘Endeavour’, which were subsequently sold. Zafiro Marine has been a provider of these specialist offshore support vessels to the oilfield services market. Zafiro Marine has managed the completion and marketing of the vessels, and in the case of Sampson, the recent upgrade of the vessel to include pipelay capability.
Alan Bowen says: “First, the Goliath was delivered, which is a DP3 (dynamically positioned) vessel with heavy lift capability and a 1600 tonnes fully revolving crane onboard. This vessel has been very successful in the Gulf of Mexico working for a national oil company. Similarly, we believed that installing an S-lay pipelay system on Sampson opens up the market place for more lucrative projects.”
As the second in this series of vessels, Sampson has much of the same functionality as Goliath in terms of DP3 capability, and a 1600 tonne fully revolving crane. It is however, a high specification vessel which means it also boasts a dedicated 200 tonne subsea AHC crane, as well as the new deepwater rigid pipelay system. “Sampson is an extremely capable vessel. Whilst most pipelay vessels have a good dynamic positioning capability when everything is working, Sampson has the ability to keep position even with extremely high pipe tension in a worst case failure scenario, which puts her into the top tier of vessels in the market place,” describes Alan.
“The vessel is also able to offer full oilfield support with ROV and if required dive spread capability, making it an absolutely top-of-the-range vessel. A 292-man accommodation capacity means that Sampson can also be used as a floatel by an operator to cut down on the number of vessels needed on a project,” he notes.
Following its upgrade Sampson completed sea trials in August 2012, since which time it has travelled to the Bay of Campeche in Mexico for final client trials. This will then see the vessel begin work on a programme of pipelay activities in the region. Delivered in 2009, Goliath in particular has been engaged on a number of activities including jacket and topside transport and installation, module installation, piling, and platform renovation. Completing the fleet is the DP2 diving support vessel Endeavour, which following a fully upgrade in 2007 has performed diving campaigns for BP, Shell, Anadarko, and AGIP amongst others.
“Sampson is proving itself to be reliable, well designed, and extremely efficient and that is winning us projects. The goal for Sampson was to complete the pipelay conversion and thus introduce into the marketplace a true global enabler, which has been achieved. Our client base is beginning to reap benefits by utilising Sampson as a multi-role and offshore support vessel. This ship can be deployed globally and enables clients to develop a field without a multitude of vessels being required,” concludes Alan.
Zafiro Marine – Sampson – DPIII offshore construction vessel
Services: Specialised offshore vessels