By Qi Bin

Like most industrial transport ships, the heavy cargo transport ship market and ship type development are dependent on other relative industries and market demands, such as energy resources and infrastructure construction. At present, there are two heavy cargo transport ship types: one is relatively small heavy lift ship which is equipped with heavy life of 100 tones; the other is large semi-submersible ship.

At present, ships are equipped with several cranes with hundreds tons of lifting capacity, the newly developed shipborne lifting equipment can carry as much as over ten thousand tons. The hull is equipped with 2 to 3 cargo hold decks, the main deck area and hatch cover are bigger and are fit for large equipment package, equipment unit and heavy machinery. Some ships can carry containers. Due to its small size, the ship can be berthed or docked speedily and easily. The profi t for heavy-lift ship transport market is high and can generally reach 20%. The competition in the heavy-lift transport ship market is therefore getting fi ercer in recent years.

Semi-submersible ship is also called semi-submersible mother ship, which mainly carries large cargo of extra length and weight that cannot be segmented for carriage,such as offshore drilling rig, barge, naval ship, frame crane,bridge member.

With the global offshore oil and gas development gradually shifting to deep sea, technical challenges are increasing,which promote heavy cargo transport ship to upgrade,and the large scalization and dynamic positioning system have become the two main trends. In addition, due to the increasing polar activities, more and more ice-class heavy cargo transport ships have emerged.

In addition to such one-off task of transporting heavy cargo, the heavy cargo transport ship has none day-to-day tasks. However, this situation perhaps will change due to the development of energy industry. Offshore engineering,like platform dismantle, installation, transport, and offshore wind turbine install market will inject energy into heavy cargo transport ship market.

With the shifting of market focus, the development of heavy cargo transport ship type is developing accordingly. Largescalization, dynamic positioning system, ice zone operation capacity are the future development trends, and the basic performance like jack up capacity and loading capacity is continually on the rise. However, due to the higher requirements for operation and management by heavy cargo transportation, the risk of navigation is higher. Additionally,due to the increase of diffi culty of operation caused by the change of future market, maneuverability and safety will certainly need future consideration. On the other hand,recently most heavy cargo transportation corporations are expanding, the delivery of large number of new ships during a short period of time will inevitably make people concerned about the surplus of transport capacity. Blind impulsion will probably make these companies become second Brugg.