Offshore wind is continuing to gain momentum, but unlike oil and gas, it doesn’t come with bottomless budgets. While fossil fuel giants can throw vast sums at mega-projects with custom-built vessels and all the bells and whistles, offshore wind developers have to be a lot smarter with their spending. Here, Theo Cleave, commercial manager at marine engineering specialist, MintMech, explains how to deliver value in offshore wind without oil and gas budgets.
Much of offshore wind’s early development borrowed heavily from oil and gas technologies. Vessels, equipment and even training regimes were adapted from oil rigs and exploration platforms. However, while oil and gas drilling requires heavyweight equipment built for extreme conditions, like blowout preventers and high-pressure valve systems, offshore wind primarily deals with muds and sands.
Many of the expensive safety features, while critical for hydrocarbon extraction, are unnecessary for geotechnical investigation in wind projects. Yet, because of industry inertia and inherited supply chains, these over-specified systems often remain in use, pushing up costs where they aren’t required.
This overengineering is compounded by a fragmented project mindset. Rather than viewing each stage of wind farm development as a standalone project, value is unlocked when developers consider the entire lifecycle, from site investigation through to installation, O&M and final decommissioning.
For example, spending more upfront on integrated geophysical surveys and sub-bottom profiling can significantly reduce design uncertainties later in the process. Accurate geological understanding across an entire site, rather than relying just on boreholes, allows for more efficient foundation design. This avoids the need to overcompensate with excess steel, delivering a more robust and cost-effective solution over time.
Increased automation
Automation plays an increasingly important role in this value chain. Many vessels operating in renewables today began life as manual, labour-intensive platforms built in the early 2000s. Retrofitting these vessels with automated drill string handling systems and real-time monitoring systems enhances safety, reduces downtime and improves data quality. Unlike oil and gas, where speed often trumps cost, the offshore wind industry’s steadier growth trajectory allows for strategic, staged investments in automation that pay dividends across multiple projects.
Crucially, health and safety expectations in offshore wind are also a major competitive differentiator. Clients treat safety performance as a key tender criterion. In practice, this means that vessels relying on manual drill string operations or showing poor safety records may be excluded from bidding, regardless of price.
Renewables clients are looking for partners who demonstrate a long-term investment in safety and automation, factors that not only reduce the risk of incidents, but improve project delivery as a whole.
To the future
As this growth continues, vessel owners and operators face an important choice: modernise with a view to specialise in a specific sector or risk falling behind. The expectation now is that a vessel or contractor brings not only equipment but expertise. This includes insight into geotechnical trends, a strong safety record and the capacity to collaborate across project phases.
Delivering value in offshore wind without oil and gas budgets doesn’t mean doing less. It means doing it differently. It requires early planning and smarter engineering with safety baked in from the get-go. With the right strategic focus, offshore wind projects can thrive without the deep pockets of the fossil fuel giants.
For more information on how you can use technology to deliver valuable offshore wind projects, within budget, visit mintmech.com.
For further information contact: Laurie Thornton, Director, Workshops 11 & 12, Jubilee Wharf, Penryn, UK, TR10 8FG
Telephone: +44 1326 369469
www: https://mintmech.com/
e-mail: hello@mintmech.com
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About MintMech
MintMech is a team of specialist engineers based in Penryn, Cornwall. Operating both nationally and internationally, MintMech consults, designs, builds and manufactures for the offshore, marine and mining industries. Supporting a broad range of projects, MintMech works from concept to commission to deliver leading solutions to complex requirements – always engineering excellence, on time and on budget.