Vessel Concepts for Offshore Mining

The ambition in the project is to cover different types of offshore mineral mining (e.g. ore and diamonds) and to develop and analyse two different initial vessel concepts to identify the optimum ship design for global operation. In order to assess and optimize innovative vessel concepts and to analyse the complete operation, sophisticated and tailored experimental and numerical procedures will be established, considering: - The influence of riser/hose on vessel motion characteristics - The DP system - The performance of motion damping devices. The two vessel designs and concepts will be produced as hull models to an appropriate scale at Sintef Ocean. A comprehensive model test program consisting of: - Performance tests in the Towing Tank - Stationkeeping tests in the Ocean Basin - Dynamic Positioning (DP) tests in the Ocean Basin will be conducted in wave, wind and current conditions according to two locations. Sintef Ocean has now completed their report to the project, which confirms that our original idea will work according to our expectations. Throughout testings, we have also got confirmations that these systems will enable us to develop vessels which fulfil customer requirements related to movement limitations. Furthermore, the test confirm that both rolling and pitching of the vessels are getting reduced to satisfactory level when utilising this system.

DeBeers har funnet prosjektet meget interessant , men har I første omgang valgt å starte et nytt prosjekt med oss basert på en noe mer tradisjonell løsning. Det er grunn til å håpe at ved neste koroosvei, når endelige rapporter og analyser fra forskningsprosjektet nå foreligger, vil være av interesse for denne aktøren. Videre har vi den senere tid vist dette prosjektet til 3 andre rederier som operer innen olje & gass og offshore vind, der samtlige finner dette konseptet interessant. Vi vil det kommende året arbeide intenst med disse aktørene for å komme videre med konkrete prosjekt basert på dette konseptet

A significant amount of marine mineral resources can be found on the floor of the world oceans creating the potential for a highly globalized industry. Massive polymetallic sulphide deposits are located along active volcanic ocean ridges that also extend into Norwegian waters as the Mohns Ridge and the Iceland-Jan Mayan-Ridge in the sea regions around Svalbard and Jan Mayen. Those deposits contain copper, iron, zinc, silver, gold and other metals in varying amounts. A second type of deposits are heavy metal deposits (tin, gold, etc.), gemstones (especially diamonds) as well as sand and gravel (aggregates) that were carried into the ocean by erosion of land and can be found in particular in area of river mouths. There is e.g. notable marine diamond mining in the river mouths areas of Namibia and South Africa. The ambition in the project is to cover different types of offshore mineral mining (e.g. ore and diamonds), two very different initial vessel concepts will be developed and analysed to identify the optimum design for global operation. In order to assess and optimize innovative vessel concepts, sophisticated and tailored experimental and numerical procedures have to be established. In order to analyse the complete operation, methods have to be developed that cover: - the influence of riser/hose on vessel motion characteristics - the DP system - the performance of motion damping devices. The two initial vessel designs will be produced as hull models to an appropriate scale at MARINTEK. A comprehensive test program consisting of - Performance tests in the Towing Tank - Stationkeeping tests in the Ocean Basin - Dynamic Positioning (DP) tests in the Ocean Basin will be conducted in wave, wind and current conditions according to two different world wide locatgions.