La. tugs get poor Alaskan review

A vessel design firm hired by a Prince William Sound environmental watchdog group is very skeptical of the capability of tugs being built to escort oil tankers out of Valdez, Alaska. Marine engineer Robert Allan told members of the Prince William Sound Regional Citizens’ Advisory Council that his company - Vancouver-based naval architecture/marine engineering firm Robert Allan Ltd. - found “fairly significant deficiencies” in the designs of two classes of tugs that Edison Chouest Offshore plans to use in the Sound starting in 2018. Last June, Louisiana-based Edison Chouest Offshore won a 10-year contract from Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. for Prince William Sound ship escort and response vessel system (SERVS). The tugs are currently under construction at four shipyards in Louisiana and Mississippi, three of which are owned by Edison Chouest, according to Alyeska SERVS Operations Manager Mike Day. They were designed by Damen Shipyards Group, a Dutch company that is a regular competitor of Damen, according to Day. Edison Chouest is scheduled to take over SERVS operations in July 2018 from an Alaska wing of Jacksonville, Fla.-based Crowley Maritime Corp., which has provided tanker docking services in Valdez since the startup of the pipeline in 1977. Alyeska operates the Valdez marine oil terminal as part of its duties overseeing the Trans-Alaska pipeline system. (Source: Alaska Journal of Commerce 01/25/17) Gulf Coast Note: Edison Chouest Offshore is headquartered out of Cut Off, La., which is 65 miles SSW of New Orleans.