International Construction Law Review
THE APPLICABILITY OF FIDIC CONTRACTS IN OFFSHORE WIND PROJECTS1
CRISTIAN RUBANOVICI*
ABSTRACT
Offshore wind has developed fast during the last decade and the parties involved in such projects must learn quickly and adapt to the innovations that occur within the industry. From a contractual point of view, one of the challenges they face relates to the lack of an internationally recognised standard by the industry that could be used for building offshore wind projects. This article provides an overview and analysis of the current contractual challenges related to the industry and the main ways of navigating through offshore wind construction contracts.
1. INTRODUCTION
Over the course of 20 years, the offshore wind market has developed a set of bespoke contracts that have their base in international construction standard contracts such as FIDIC,2 LOGIC,3 BIMCO4 or the NOSC5 in addition to other related standard forms.
However, even though there are already some industry standards developed, it is difficult to apply an international contractual standard "as is" to an offshore wind project. Contractual aspects of offshore wind projects
1 * Cristian Rubanovici, cristian.rubanovici@gmail.com.
** This article is based on the author’s master’s thesis – "Particularities of International Construction Contracts in the Offshore Wind Industry" submitted to the University of Copenhagen and supervised by Sylvie Cécile Cavaleri, PhD, Associate Professor. The thesis was awarded First Prize 2021 in the thesis competition organised by the European Society of Construction Law.
*** I would like to express my gratitude to my colleague Andreas Nørrelykke Steffensen for his valuable input and review of this article.
2 Fédération Internationale Des Ingénieurs-Conseils/International Federation of Consulting Engineers https://fidic.org/about-us (last accessed 1 March 2022).
3 Leading Oil and Gas Industry Competitiveness https://www.logic-oil.com/ (last accessed 1 March 2022).
4 Baltic and International Maritime Council https://www.bimco.org/ (last accessed 1 March 2022).
5 Norwegian Total Contract (NTK)/Norwegian Fabrication Contract (NF) https://www.norskindustri.no/ (last accessed 1 March 2022).
Pt 2] The Applicability of FIDIC Contracts in Offshore Wind Projects
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