07_Vessels Serving in Specialized Fields

Take a look at the wide variety of MOL Group vessels in service,
some of which are highly specialized for different purposes.

Powerful Enough to Carry Any Cargo,
Oversize or Heavyweight

A heavy lifter loading subway cars
Heavy Lifters

These vessels specialize in carrying heavy cargoes such as plant components, large construction machinery, rail cars, and so on, each of which weighs more than 30 tons. The holds are box-shaped, creating a boxy space with few protrusions, with wide hatches on deck to facilitate cargo loading and unloading cargo. In addition, a solid, movable partition can separate the holds into upper and lower sections. That means our heavy lifters can accommodate all kinds of cargoes, of any length, weight, or shape. Large cargoes that cannot fit in the holds are carried on the highly reinforced weather decks. These vessels are also equipped with powerful cranes to unload heavy cargo under their own power. Another feature is the large-capacity ballast tanks on both sides of the vessel to prevent the vessel from tilting too far during loading and unloading operations.

Tugboats are Indispensable in Escorting Large Vessels
in and out of Port

A tugboat assists an LNG carrier entering port
Tugboats
Tugboats are used to push and pull vessels and marine equipment and facilities. Sizes vary depending on their intended use. Harbor tugs, which assist in the arrival and departure of large vessels in port are mainly in the 150-200-ton class, and ocean-going tugs, which transport large plant equipment in open sea crossings, can range up to several thousand tons.

Tugboats feature powerful engines because they need to move much larger vessels and structures. Harbor tugs are equipped with azimuth thruster propellers that rotate 360° for extremely tight turns, and do not require a rudder. Fenders, such as used tires or plastic bumpers, are attached around perimeter of the tugboat as cushioning materials. These prevent damage when tugboats come into direct contact with the hulls of vessels they are assisting.

Installation and Maintenance of Optical Submarine Cables
Supporting High-speed Communications

Cable-laying ship
(photo courtesy of KDDI
Cableships & Subsea Engineering Inc.)
Cable-laying ships
Cable-laying ships are used to install, repair, and recover optical submarine cables. A dynamic positioning system (a system to automatically control the vessel’s position) is installed to keep the vessel in a fixed position as it constantly moves with the waves and wind, since the vessel must be maintained in a precise position during the work. Cable-laying vessels are equipped with a “cable tank” for housing cables, a “drum cable engine” for repeatedly winding and unwinding cables, a “linear cable engine” for laying cables at high speed, and an underwater robot used for repair, survey, and burial cables. Space on the deck is used as a staging area. These vessels also have a “cable control room,” where work is constantly monitored onscreen to ensure safe, efficient completion of each task.

Contributing Extensively to the Offshore
Wind Power Value Chain

Wind power generation is becoming increasingly popular as a natural energy source that can generate large volumes of electricity at relatively low cost. Development of offshore wind power generation requires different types of vessels: those carrying equipment as well as those transporting engineers for the installation and maintenance to sites far out at sea. The MOL Group is developing the following fleet to precisely respond to demand at each stage.

Service Operation Vessel (SOV)

SOVs are offshore support vessels with accommodations that allow technicians to stay offshore wind farms for long periods of time. These vessels also feature dynamic positioning systems (DPS) to maintain a safe distance between the vessel and offshore wind turbines at all times. SOVs are also equipped with a motion compensated gangway that has a function to absorb any ship motion caused by waves, in order to safely transfer technicians from the vessel to Transition Piece of offshore wind turbine.
Crew Transfer Vessel（CTV）

CTVs (with a capacity of 12-24 passengers) operate from a base port to bring engineers to offshore wind farms that are relatively close to shore. The fenders attached to the bow of the vessel are pressed against the offshore wind turbine to stabilize the hull and then engineers board the offshore wind turbine platform. Aluminum catamarans are the mainstream hull type.

The SEPs(Self-Elevating Platforms) introduced in the Energy Transport (Offshore Business) section is also one of the vessels active in the offshore wind power generation business.

Icebreaking LNG Carrier
＜Yamal LNG Project＞

Russia’s Yamal Peninsula holds the nation’s the largest natural gas reserves. Yamal, which means “end of the Earth” in Russian, is an isolated region inside the Arctic Circle about 2,500km from Moscow. The area is covered in ice for most of the year and the temperature drop to minus 40℃ in the winter. The icebreaking LNG carrier was developed to transport large volumes of LNG from the Yamal Peninsula.

In 2018, the world’s first icebreaking LNG carrier, operated by MOL, went into service. It transports LNG to all parts of the world throughout the year, with specifications that allow navigation through seas with ice as thick as 2.1m—the special “ice bow” shape makes it easy to break the ice under the surface of the water, and the equipment on deck is protected against icing and freezing. In the summer, the icebreaking LNG carrier travels to East Asia via the Northern Sea Route, and in the winter, supplies LNG via Europe.

Icebreaking LNG carrier. Tank capacity is 172,000m³