NYK Continues Drive to Develop Businesses for Offshore Wind Sector

Japan’s NYK is continuing its efforts to enter into the growing offshore energy business to realize the opportunities created as Japan’s government takes efforts to support the development of offshore wind projects. 

In its latest step, NYK completed a memorandum of understanding with OYO Corporation, Japan's largest geotechnical investigation company, and Fugro, a geotechnical survey company. The agreement is the first step toward a partnership that would provide services required by the domestic offshore wind power industry. It also builds on NYK’s previous agreements related to the offshore wind sector.

NYK is positioning itself to take advantage of a law Japan enacted in April 2019 intended to facilitate the development of offshore wind projects. With the government’s support, demand within the offshore wind power generation market is expected to expand.

The development of an offshore wind power plant will require collecting geotechnical data on the sea area as companies considering the basic design of the wind turbines and the layout of the power plant. NYK is positioning itself for this first critical juncture as well as in the installation of wind plants.

In November 2020, NYK agreed to an MoU with Fugro to jointly operate an offshore geotechnical investigation vessel and provide a cone penetration test service. The CPT is one of the various offshore geotechnical services required by the offshore wind power industry. 

Through the partnerships with Fugro and OYO, NYK will be able to offer CPTs and other geotechnical services, such as standard penetration tests. The companies will be positioned to provide the wide range of research demands required for the construction of offshore wind farms.

NYK, OYO, and Fugro will be able to provide these services using the offshore geotechnical investigation vessel that is planned to be operated jointly by NYK and Fugro. 

At the beginning of 2020, NYK also announced agreements for two other segments of the industry. Working with Northern Offshore Group they entered into an agreement for a crew transfer vessel business related to offshore wind power generation. NYK also entered into an agreement with Van Oord to jointly own and operate offshore wind installation vessels under the Japanese flag. Both the investigation vessel and the installation ships would at the earliest be ready for service in 2022.