MacGregor has secured a contract to supply a 165-tonne active heave compensated (AHC) crane for a newbuild Ulstein SX121 vessel ordered by Jan De Nul and under construction at the China Merchants Heavy Industry (CMHI) shipyard. The order is part of a 1+1 vessel programme, with delivery scheduled for February 2028. It has been booked into MacGregor's second quarter 2026 order intake.

Active heave compensation enables a crane to counteract a vessel's motion caused by waves and swell, allowing offshore lifting operations to be carried out with greater precision. AHC cranes are standard equipment across modern offshore construction and installation fleets, where deck motion would otherwise narrow the range of sea conditions in which precise lifts can be made. MacGregor is a provider of maritime cargo and load-handling technology serving both merchant shipping and offshore sectors.

For Jan De Nul, a Luxembourg-based offshore construction and dredging contractor whose fleet ranges from trailing suction hopper dredgers to offshore installation vessels active on offshore wind projects, MacGregor's track record in previous projects proved the deciding factor in selecting the 165-tonne capacity crane — a lifting solution that has already demonstrated its performance in service. The SX121 is a vessel design from Ulstein, the Norwegian ship design and shipbuilding group.

"This crane's lightweight design gives higher lifting capacity without the added weight of a larger unit, and that translates into a real operational advantage over the vessel's working life," says Lucie Addicks, Executive Vice President, Offshore Solutions, MacGregor.

MacGregor's local presence and production capabilities in China provide CMHI — part of China Merchants Group's shipbuilding operations — with direct access to design, installation, and commissioning support throughout the build, helping the yard maintain schedule discipline through to the planned delivery. Chinese yards such as CMHI have become established builders of specialist offshore tonnage for European owners, which makes supplier proximity to the build site a practical consideration in equipment selection.

The order reinforces MacGregor's role as a long-term partner to owners and yards in the offshore construction sector, with lifting technology built for safety, reliability, and performance over a vessel's working life. With delivery set for February 2028 and the order already booked into second quarter 2026 intake, the 1+1 structure leaves a second vessel in the programme as an option rather than a committed order.

Source: MacGregor