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Support vessel to service oil & gas operations launched

  • SOURCE: | qwesa2big
  • An indigenous offshore vessel has been commissioned to provide support services to firms operating in the oil and gas industry in the country.

    The offshore anchor handler, christened Dutch Blue, is a utility boat which performs various support services, including delivering consumables such as fuel, water, food and general supplies to the oil rigs and the Floating, Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel.
    It can also serve as a crew boat to transport dignitaries on visit to rigs and for carrying maintenance crews to the rigs.

    The vessel is a product of the collaboration between Menergy International (Ghana) Ltd and its overseas partner, Holland Shipyard, a Dutch shipbuilding company and offshore support service provider.

    The arrival of the MV Dutch Blue will fill a gaping vacuum in which most supplies (including water, food, cement, consumables) for workers on the rig have to be transported by helicopters.

    “We believe that this launch marks the beginning of a large stock of vessels that we’re to receive. This is just the beginning,” Mr Kojo Asafo-Aidoo, a Director of Menergy, said at the commission, adding that the company’s second vessel would be named after the wife of Ghana’s first President, Fathia Nkrumah.

    Mr Asafo-Aidoo said the strategy of the company was to develop integrated projects which combined domestic and export of oil and gas supply services, adding that overcoming challenges in the oil industry, and ensuring local content were important for which the financial services industry needed to support local players.

    “I would like to take this opportunity to challenge our financial intermediaries to offer more pragmatic solutions to the myriad of financial needs of local players, failure of which we risk being dwarfed by the foreign competitors with financial might,” he said.

    A Ghanaian, Daniel Mensah, founded Menergy International in 1989, to provide human capital support to oil rigs in Equatorial Guinea and those rigs, discovered oil in that country.
    Incidentally, the company, which started operations in Ghana in 1992, when it partnered the GNPC to provide drilling crews for rigs, was again privileged to have the rigs it serviced while discovering oil in Ghana’s Jubilee Field. Until today, the company provides the bulk of logistics services to Ghana’s oil and gas industry.

    Menergy currently has branches in almost every West African country where either drilling of oil or oil exploration activities are underway.
    Mr Asafo-Aidoo commended the government for the strenuous efforts it made to develop the local content bill, but said the policy could be leveraged to create the critical infrastructure needed to support our operations over the long term.”

    The Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Holland Shipyard, Mr Cor Hoogendoorn, expressed great satisfaction about the partnership between the two companies and said the company saw a lot of potential and opportunities in Ghana and West Africa as a whole for which they would collaborate to leverage on.

    “There is a bright future for Ghana. Searching around the world, we found Ghana to be an ideal place and Menergy, a very worthy partner company. It is heart-warming to see that Ghana’s ties with The Netherlands dating back years in the form of Vlisco, a Dutch wax print company, are more than 100 years,” Mr Hoogendoorn stated.

    He noted that Holland Shipyard, the Dutch company, was already collaborating with the Ghanaian entity in most parts of the Gulf of Guinea to provide offshore support services, adding that “there is a lot we can do”.

    The Second Secretary for Trade and Culture at the Dutch Embassy in Ghana, Mr Marnix J. Segers, commended the partners for their collaboration, and said the partnership was opportune as “a lot is happening here in Ghana”.

    Ministry of Energy

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