The offshore wind market continues to grow rapidly, further supported by the recent decision of the UN Climate Summit COP28 to triple the world’s renewable energy capacity by 2030, a large portion of which is expected to come from offshore wind. The acquisition is in line with Fugro's strategy to capture this market growth opportunity.
For Fugro’s market leading position, vessels are key strategic assets. As communicated during the Capital Markets Day in November, part of Fugro’s strategy for the coming four years is to secure long term vessel capacity, especially for the global offshore wind market, which has a particularly large need for mapping of soil composition and its associated properties via the extraction and testing of soil samples. For the foreseeable future, these activities cannot be executed with smaller and/or uncrewed platforms.
The addition of these 2 recent vessels (built in 2019 and 2020 respectively) to its owned fleet will further strengthen Fugro’s ability to address the market demands and shortage in geotechnical capable vessels. With the purchase of these strategic assets Fugro will operate a balanced fleet of owned and chartered vessels, maintaining flexibility towards the future.
Upon delivery of Sea Goldcrest in the course of 2024, Fugro will start the conversion to a geotechnical vessel, which is expected to be operational early 2025. Sea Gull, which is already under charter with Fugro and fully operational, will be delivered late 2024 or early 2025.
The purchase of these vessels also supports Fugro’s net zero 2035 roadmap as both vessels are fuel efficient and suitable for the conversion to low-carbon fuels. In addition, Fugro continues to invest in remote and digital solutions, amongst others by further growing its fleet of uncrewed surface vessels
Source: fugro
