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#PORTS & SHIPPING – Harland & Wolff Heavy Industries Ltd (H&W) have secured a contract to dry dock and service the Searose (2004/139,950dwt) a Canadian east coast based floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel later this year.

The 272 metres long by 46 metre beamed FPSO is operated by Husky Oil and is based at the White Rose oilfield, 350km off the Newfoundland coast.

Searose will be dry-docked at H&W's Belfast Repair Dock and also use the Repair Quay during May and June. The work at the Queen's Island facility will be led by an integrated project team made up of owner and H&W personnel along with key contractors and vendors.

"H&W, along with our key contractors, are pleased to have secured the SeaRose FPSO project and to demonstrate the capabilities of the UK Oil & Gas supply chain," said H&W Project Manager James Lappin.

"This is an important opportunity, not only for H&W but for Northern Ireland, to extend a welcome to our Canadian visitors and demonstrate our world class facilities."

"We are proud that they have put their trust in us," H&W Chief Executive Officer Robert J Cooper said. "All levels of H&W are committed to ensuring this important project is completed safely and successfully."

H&W was founded over 150 years ago and has built some of the world's most famous ships, including three from the White Star Line: the Olympic, Titanic, and the Britannic, P&O's Canberra and the RN World War II battle-cruiser HMS Belfast, where she remains at moorings on the Thames.

Published in Ports & Shipping

About Brittany Ferries

In 1967 a farmer from Finistère in Brittany, Alexis Gourvennec, succeeded in bringing together a variety of organisations from the region to embark on an ambitious project: the aim was to open up the region, to improve its infrastructure and to enrich its people by turning to traditional partners such as Ireland and the UK. In 1972 BAI (Brittany-England-Ireland) was born.

The first cross-Channel link was inaugurated in January 1973, when a converted Israeli tank-carrier called Kerisnel left the port of Roscoff for Plymouth carrying trucks loaded with Breton vegetables such as cauliflowers and artichokes. The story, therefore, begins on 2 January 1973, 24 hours after Great Britain's entry into the Common Market (EEC).

From these humble beginnings however, Brittany Ferries as the company was re-named quickly opened up to passenger transport, then became a tour operator.

Today, Brittany Ferries has established itself as the national leader in French maritime transport: an atypical leader, under private ownership, still owned by a Breton agricultural cooperative.

Eighty five percent of the company’s passengers are British.

Key Brittany Ferries figures:

  • Turnover: €202.4 million (compared with €469m in 2019)
  • Investment in three new ships, Galicia plus two new vessels powered by cleaner LNG (liquefied natural gas) arriving in 2022 and 2023
  • Employment: 2,474 seafarers and shore staff (average high/low season)
  • Passengers: 752,102 in 2020 (compared with 2,498,354 in 2019)
  • Freight: 160,377 in 2020 (compared with 201,554 in 2019)
  • Twelve ships operating services that connect France, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Spain (non-Covid year) across 14 routes
  • Twelve ports in total: Bilbao, Santander, Portsmouth, Poole, Plymouth, Cork, Rosslare, Caen, Cherbourg, Le Havre, Saint-Malo, Roscoff
  • Tourism in Europe: 231,000 unique visitors, staying 2.6 million bed-nights in France in 2020 (compared with 857,000 unique visitors, staying 8,7 million bed-nights in 2019).