From Huisman yard, Schiedam: Some time in the next month, Ceona, a relative newcomer to the offshore construction sector, will take possession of its newbuild field development vessel Ceona Amazon and take a stronger place in the crowded SURF contracting field.

The delivery of this impressive ship which is completing most of its fitting out here does not mean that Ceona is a tier one player. In theory, it has the managerial, technical and financial potential to be a bigger player, but much of that will be left to the vagaries of the marketplace and how it pans out over the next few years, while the offshore sector recovers from the recent high-wire crash.

As with all new participants who come into a fiercely competitive market sector, the company has had to prove itself by picking up jobs where it can.

It has used its long-term (five years from GC Rieber) chartered vessel, Polar Onyx, to carry its flag along with the short-term (one year) unit Normand Pacific. The former is on a five-year deal with Petrobras as a flexible product installer, known in the Brazilian sector as a pipelay support vessel (plsv). Anywhere else it would simply be an installation unit.

Meanwhile Normand Pacific has been moving around, mostly in West Africa, handling small and medium-sized jobs which allow it to build up ‘street cred’, but also to cultivate a client base among smaller operators.

The big moment will be when Amazon sets sail for the Gulf of Mexico for its first contracted job, although its marketing team is looking for earlier work than the one on the books for Walter Oil & Gas. It will be ready to sail once its new modular firing is in place.

Offshore manager Colin McCabe told SEN that the export line for Coelecanth is ‘the perfect first job’ for a new unit - twin 10.75in export lines totalling 35km in 365m of water in a straight line.

This might seem like small potatoes for such a mighty ship which measures in at just a hair under 200m with its giant ‘g-lay’ system and a pair of 400t ahc cranes, but as they say, you have to start somewhere.

There are no illusions among the management team many who were here - including well-known industry veteran Mark Preece - that the next few years will be a tough going. It has already decided to slim down by releasing Normand Pacific and pushing back plans for Amazon II until at least 2018.

SCHIEDAM SIGHTINGS: There was an awful lot going on - it was really crowded! - in the harbour area around Huismann’s busy fabrication yard here.

Firstly, in addition to Ceona Amazon, at Huismann’s facility were two other complete or nearly complete pipelay towers for Subsea 7 and DOF Subsea.

Also in view further up the channel was EMAS AMC’s newbuild pipelay-lift ship Lewek Constellation which has only just finished its fitting out at Huismann with an 800t pipelay system for both rigid and flexible pipe and a 3,000t deepwater crane.

By now, it should have left Europe enroute to its first pipelay job for Noble Energy in the Gulf of Mexico.

But of some considerable interest, across the channel from Amazon at the Damen shipyard, was the vessel that changed the way the industry approached floating production, the venerable Petrojarl 1.

Originally known as the pts, or production test ship, it had its first outing at Norsk Hydro’s Oseberg field in 1986 and showed the industry the value of the flexibility of such a unit. Historically it never had a production regularity on any of its projects under 96% and all of those jobs were in the North Sea.

Owner Teekay Offshore is having it upgraded and spruced up for its next assignment across the pond for QGEP on the Atlanta (SEN, 31/19) field, offshore Brazil.

Offshore