New Debmarine Namibia diamond recovery vessel sets world record

The World Record Academy has stated that Debmarine Namibia’s latest diamond recovery vessel, Additional Mining Vessel 3 (AMV3), has set a new world record for the largest diamond recovery vessel.

The 177m diamond recovery vessel AMV3 was built at Damen Shipyards Mangalia in Romania for Debmarine Namibia, a 50/50 joint venture between the De Beers Group and the government of Namibia, at a cost of approximately US$470 million. It is the first vessel to be delivered by Damen Shipyards Mangalia, marking the end of the shipbuilding phase of the project that began three years ago.

Following an official handover on August 18-19, the vessel departed on a four-week long maiden voyage to Cape Town, South Africa, where it will be fitted with mission equipment.

AMV3 is scheduled to join Debmarine’s existing five-strong fleet 19km off the southwest coast of Namibia in early 2022. The vessel will use sub-sea crawling extraction techniques to recover diamonds from the seabed, and they will then be processed on board.

At 177m in length, AMV3 is now the largest diamond recovery vessel in the world and Debmarine Namibia expects the vessel to operate for at least 30 years. It will be the new flagship of the company’s fleet, which produces 1.4 million carats of diamonds each year.

Building the vessel involved many challenges, including the onset of COVID-19 in 2020 to the management of various subcontractors, which each contributed their specialist skills and products. Some of the engineering challenges included the installation of a DP2 dynamic positioning system to enable greater operational flexibility for the vessel, which is based on a seven-thruster propulsion system powered by six generators. De Beers Marine South Africa undertook the project management.

Due to the constraints of COVID-19, the complete commissioning process was undertaken by Damen, which implemented incremental ways of working to ensure that the vessel was completed on schedule.

Michael Curtis, project head for De Beers Marine and head of the AMV3 project, said: “De Beers celebrates the completion of the vessel which, after a long period of design, construction and testing has now proceeded to sea. The vessel build has been a truly multinational effort which has converged successfully at Damen Shipyards Mangalia. The build of this magnificent ship has enjoyed a high profile in Namibia as the largest ever single investment in the history of marine diamond recovery.

“Today marks a significant milestone in the project and for our company as the vessel starts its journey to Cape Town where it will be outfitted with the mission equipment. Damen’s dedication to building this high-quality and complex vessel, under very difficult circumstances and to do so with an excellent safety record is acknowledged and the quality of the ship is a testament to the skills of all who have been involved.”

Curtis believes that dynamic positioning technology has now come into its own. He explained: “Historically, we’ve always used vessels with a four-point mooring spread – the stability was always there but it takes a day to lift, meaning we lose a production day every seven to eight days.”

However, dynamic positioning technology now surpasses anchoring and offers a much greater degree of flexibility. Curtis said: “With dynamic positioning, we’re not limited to the size of spread, there’s no risk of anchor loss, we don’t have to carry and maintain anchors and winches, and there’s no safety risk in the handling of anchors. Moreover, dynamic positioning requires very little increase in fuel consumption to keep the vessel on its station, so the benefits make it a far more attractive proposition.”