World’s tallest jack-up vessel leaves China

Jan De Nul’s second and largest jack-up vessel, Voltaire, has left Cosco Shipping Shipyard in Nantong, China, bound for the United Arab Emirates. The vessel, now the tallest jack-up installation unit in the world capable of working in water depths of up to 80m, has four 132m-long legs and a crane with capacity to lift 16,000 tonnes out of the water. The Voltaire is the company’s second installation vessel to be built in China and joins the DP2 floating installation unit, Les Alizés.

Voltaire has been designed in-house by Jan De Nul engineers and its first deployment will be on the world’s largest wind farm, Dogger Bank, off the UK coast. Once fully operational, the 3.6-GW wind farm is expected to generate sufficient power to meet the requirements of more than six million UK homes.

The Voltaire’s main crane, with a capacity of 3,200 tonnes, enables construction of both current and future generations of wind farms at sea, the company said. It will transport, lift, and install offshore wind turbines, transition pieces, and foundations and will also be capable of supporting the oil and gas industry in the future decommissioning of offshore structures.

Commenting earlier during the construction of Voltaire, Jan De Nul’s Offshore Division Director, Philippe Hutse, said: “The Voltaire will enable us to work in deeper waters and reach ever-higher nacelle heights than before. Adding Voltaire and Les Alizés to the fleet gives us the perfect set of vessels to execute the growing number of large and clustered international offshore wind projects.”