Bridgemans Services Group’s 650-bed floatel – dubbed MV Isabelle X, moored close to Squamish, B.C. – has been the company’s most challenging to build to date and aims to produce net-zero emissions.Bridgemans Services Group/Supplied
As global industries push for more sustainable practices, one Vancouver-based company is making waves – literally. Bridgemans Services Group transforms cruise ships into floating hotels – or “floatels” – that offer comfortable, eco-conscious accommodations for remote work-forces.
Bridgemans has deployed its vessels in some of the most challenging and remote locations around the world. Its seasteads house teams of up to 1,400 that mostly work on liquefied natural gas (LNG) construction projects, mining developments and government assignments.
However, its 650-bed floatel close to Squamish, B.C., has proven to be the 12-year-old company’s most complex – and rewarding – project yet, says Brian Grange, Bridgemans’ co-founder and president.
Last June, after a multimillion-dollar retrofit, the floatel began accommodating workers building B.C.-based Woodfibre LNG’s natural gas liquefaction and export facility. The ship, called MV Isabelle X, is roughly the size of a six-storey building and spans an entire city block.
The $5.1-billion LNG plant, located just an hour’s drive from Vancouver and only accessible by water, is expected to produce 2.1 million tonnes of LNG for overseas markets per year once it’s complete in 2027. By the time it’s operational, Woodfibre LNG claims its plant “will be the first LNG export facility to achieve net-zero emissions.” The company says this is a result of its use of renewable hydroelectricit and carbon offsets.
Despite Woodfibre LNG’s net-zero ambitions, most scientists oppose the idea that decarbonizing the planet involves fossil fuels, with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change calling for a “substantial reduction in overall fossil fuel use.”
Minimizing emissions effects
Woodfibre LNG selected Bridgemans, known for its sustainable development practices, to provide accommodations that align with its mandate. “They wanted to have a net-zero floatel, and that created all kinds of challenges,” Mr. Grange says. “We had to come up with a way to take a vessel otherwise dependent on diesel and eliminate all carbon.”
To meet Woodfibre LNG’s expectations, Bridgemans’ long-time European engineer helped create industrial-sized heat pumps that heat and cool the ship using salt water. A team of engineers from the Maritimes turned off the ship’s diesel generators, which are still required during travel, and designed, built and installed a two-megawatt facility that operates on hydroelectric power.
Other technologies that help the floatel reach its sustainability goals include an ultrafiltration sewage treatment system and an ultraviolet fresh-water purification system, which is intended to encourage the refilling of reusable canteens, as opposed to using plastic water bottles.
Supplying pristine tap water is one result of Bridgemans’ Clean Oceans program, which launched in 2021 while the company was operating a 1,000-bed floatel in the Philippines. “The plastic and garbage in the water drove me absolutely crazy,” says Mr. Grange, whose program has since prevented the use and disposal of hundreds of thousands of plastic water bottles.
Bridgemans' floatels often include luxury accommodations for workers that include things like memory foam mattresses, big-screen TVs and high-speed WiFi.Bridgemans Services Group
Minimizing community impact
Woodfibre LNG president Christine Kennedy says Bridgemans has proven to be “the ideal partner.”
Like many urban areas, Squamish also has a housing supply shortage, and Ms. Kennedy appreciates how the floatel eliminates the adverse effects that workers could otherwise have on the town’s lack of housing.
Ms. Kennedy says Woodfibre LNG’s employees, who are ferried from Vancouver to the MV Isabelle X on 14-day rotations, have been appreciative of their new accommodations. “This is partly because each single-occupancy ensuite room is outfitted with a memory foam bed, big-screen TV and high-speed WiFi. When off work and not enjoying the floatel’s three hotel-quality meals daily, employees can hit the 8,000-square-foot gym, pool room or coffee shop.”
“Several have told us it’s the best camp they’ve ever been in,” she says.
A niche industry
Work-force floatels are not new. Owners of large, offshore and coastal resource and infrastructure projects have housed crews on them since the early 2000s. But it remains a “niche” industry, Mr. Grange says, with the world being home to about two dozen.
Aside from the floatel in B.C., Bridgemans operates another 1,400-bed floatel at an overseas LNG site. At least one other contract is in the works to purchase another cruise ferry, making Bridgemans one of the largest floatel developers in the market.
While early floatels featured dorm-style setups with basic amenities, they’ve evolved to include movie theatres, arcades, basketball courts, wellness and medical facilities, and swimming pools. Bridgemans, which has retrofitted a total of six ships, has included most of these amenities in its floatels.
When not enjoying three of the floatel’s high-quality meals daily, workers can hit the 8,000-square-foot gym, pool room or coffee shop. Quality amenities are paramount for worker attraction and retention, experts say.Bridgemans Services Group/Supplied
More interest in amenities
One trend sweeping the work-force accommodations market is enhanced recreational space, says Adam Beattie, president of the structures division at ATCO, a global energy, housing and infrastructure provider that builds land-based labour accommodations. One of the company’s projects is one of Canada’s largest lodging complexes, housing 4,500 workers for LNG Canada’s future facility in coastal Kitimat, B.C.
”Our camps could be mistaken for resorts,” Mr. Beattie says. “We’ve built outdoor running tracks, cricket and rugby fields, and full-size gymnasiums with basketball and squash courts.”
Satisfying workers with quality facilities is paramount for work-force attraction and retention, says Greg Kwong, CBRE Canada’s Alberta executive chair. “No matter what you pay these workers, you literally have to provide them with luxury accommodations or it’s not going to last long – or they’ll be grumpy and less productive,” Mr. Kwong says.
Like Bridgemans, ATCO Structures aims to make its buildings sustainable through waste-reducing modular construction and energy-efficient units.
Still, Mr. Grange from Bridgemans insists floatels have a lighter ecological footprint. This is because new, land-based work-force accommodations require the demolition of carbon-sequestering trees, the operation of factories to develop building materials and several trips to transport all the property’s housing to the site. In addition, most land-based work-force accommodations use diesel-generated power, with many remote camps being left to deteriorate.
”We don’t have to cut down any trees. We don’t have to build any temporary structures. We float in, tie up, float out, leaving no trace,” Mr. Grange says.
”It’s just the perfect model for coastal projects. I don’t know why anyone would contemplate anything different.”