The Port of Argentia sees its latest venture in the wind energy sector as a major coup for international business, but also a training ground for bigger things to come.
On Friday, workers, town reps and industry players gathered to recognize the work that’s gone into establishing the port as the first transit route and laydown yard for the massive foundations that support offshore wind turbines.
The 20-storey monopiles, as they’re known, will be shipped to Argentia on a 210-metre-long vessel, with the first arrival scheduled for August.
They’ll then be offloaded and stored there before being shipped again to sites for installation in the ocean floor along the Eastern Seaboard by the Dutch multi-national Boskalis.
Port of Argentia CEO Scott Penney says they, like everyone else, scrambled and investigated ways to recover from the pandemic downtime, quickly stumbling onto the offshore wind opportunity.
He says the port had just what Boskalis was looking for.
“We have 70 hectares of paved runway, we have an ice-free port, and we’re a sheltered harbor and lots of flat land,” said Penney. “And luckily, one of the world’s largest marine companies said Port of Argentia you’ve got our attention and today we are partnered up with that large company, and we are North America’s first offshore wind monopile marshalling port.”
Penney says beyond the lucrative contract and spinoffs for the area, it will give the port the opportunity to expand and prepare for inevitable offshore wind projects off Newfoundland.
“We see this really as the ability for us to get some key learnings, such as how to handle these monopiles, how to offload them, how to store them, and really become an expert at this, and hopefully that will enable us to position ourselves to be the port again of destination and choice as we kick off the Canadian and the Newfoundland offshore wind development market.”
Penney says massive vessels carrying the monopiles will continue to arrive from Europe over the next two years, dropping off and later transporting the structures to their final, deep-water destinations.