Pioneering Spirit: World's Largest Vessel Nears Completion

The world’s largest ship, Pioneering Spirit, is undergoing final construction at the Port of Rotterdam in preparation for its commission this summer.

Built at Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering’s yard in Okpo, South Korea, Allseas’ Pioneering Spirit (formerly named Pieter Schelte) boasts 403,342 gt and dynamic positioning installed by Kongsberg Maritime. The installation/decommissioning and pipelay vessel was inaugurated in February at a ceremony in Rotterdam, and will carry out its maiden voyage in the Norwegian region of the North Sea to remove the 15,000-ton Yme platform deck.

The Pioneering Spirit is the world’s largest vessel in terms of gross tonnage, and has a 2,000-ton pipelay tension capacity, 25,000-ton jacket lift capacity, and a 48,000-ton topside lift capacity. The vessel, which cost an estimated $2 billion, measures 382 meters in length and 117 meter in width. Pioneering Spirit’s tension capacity doubles that of Allseas’ Solitaire ship, which was the world’s largest pipelay vessel before Spirit.

The vessel was built specifically for heavy single-lift installation, the removal of large platforms, and the installation of subsea pipelines. In addition to the Yme platform, the Pioneering Spirit has already been contracted to work on the decommissioning of Shell’s Brent Field platforms in the European region, where it will be responsible for the removal of decks and jacket structure.

Allseas has announced that it plans to build a second single-lift vessel similar to the Spirit but larger. The company stated that the new ship will be ready in 2020 and will also aid in the installation and removal of platforms up to 77,000 tons.