Marine Technology Reporter Blogs - niteroi

Last Month the DOF Group named on the largest anchor handling tug vessel (AHT) ever built in Brazil, the Skandi Iguaçu. The vessel has over 32,000 BHP installed and bollard pull of more than 300 tons. Having been built at the STX OSV shipyard accros the bridge from the city of Rio de Janeiro, in Niteroi, the vessel will be ready for delivery to Petrobras three to five months in advance of contract requirement. Skandi Iguacu was ordered from STX OSV shipyard, with financing from the Brazilian Merchant Marine Fund through the BNDES (Brazilian Development Bank). The Skandi Iguaçu is part of a new generation of high powered anchor handling vessels, designed for operations across a wide range of deepwater depths and environmental conditions.

In the past all umbilicals were made of thermoplastics, used mainly for transport of hydraulic fluids to open or close valves, with separate hoses connecting to each valve on a subsea tree. As the deepwater production increased, concerns over possible failures on thermoplastic umbilicals mounted, triggering the development of the steel tube umbilical. Efficiency and reliability are the keys for deepwater umbilicals. The modern subsea umbilical used by the O&G industry provides transmission of electric and fiber optic signals, electrical power, hydraulic fluids, and injection of chemical fluids from the surface to the seabed through electric and/or fiber optic cables encased in thermoplastic and/or steel tubes.