This investment is part of Van Oord's strategy to strengthen its leading position in the growing offshore wind market. Van Oord has a leading role in the laying and burying of offshore wind power cables.

The new vessel has been designed with the latest sustainable technologies in order to reduce the carbon footprint during operations and port standby. Apart from the possibility to run on biofuel, this hybrid vessel has future fuel-ready engines with built-in flexibility to anticipate e-fuels. It will have a large battery pack, a shore supply connection and a state-of-the-art energy management system. This sustainable set-up will result in a more energy-efficient vessel reduce CO₂, NOx and SOx emissions.

"Van Oord is committed to reducing CO₂ emissions to become carbon-neutral by 2050, in line with the Paris Agreement. This investment emphasises its commitment to net-zero emissions," said Pieter van Oord, CEO of Van Oord

"We highly appreciate the close and excellent cooperation that has been established between Van Oord and VARD's project teams to enable this innovative vessel within the renewable segment," said Alberto Maestrini, CEO of VARD. "Our ambition is to contribute to our customers' achievements, through environmentally friendly vessels and technological solutions focusing on safety, sustainability and efficiency performance, and we are looking forward to developing this cable-layer together with Van Oord."

The new DP2 vessel will be equipped with a below-deck cable carousel and a second carousel on deck, with a total cable-carrying capacity of 8,000t. The vessel will mainly be deployed on inter-array grid and export cables of offshore wind projects. The vessel is also able to install high voltage direct current cables. Van Oord's highly innovative cable trenchers can also be operated from this vessel.

This new vessel is Van Oord's second cable-laying vessel in addition to the Nexus. Its intelligent cable lay control system will be a further evolution from Nexus.