Offshore staff
LERWICK, UK — Allseas’ Pioneering Spirit has delivered the Ninian Northern production platform jacket to Lerwick Port Authority’s Dales Vow Base in Shetland, northern Scotland for dismantling/recycling.
The vessel removed the 8,500-metric ton, 83-m (272-ft) tall steel structure in a single lift last week from the Ninian field in the North Sea, 100 mi (161 km) north-east of the Shetland Islands.
According to Lerwick Port Authority, this is the first time Pioneering Spirt has operated at a quayside in a UK port.
The vessel was due to use its 5,000-metric ton (5,511-ton) capacity crane will initially lift steel support structures, which were employed in 2020 for delivering the Ninian Northern topside, onto a barge for removal and re-use. This will clear the way for load-in of the jacket.
Pioneering Spirit was then due to transfer to mid-voe to transfer the jacket via Allseas’ Iron Lady barge to the Base.
The plan was to load-in the structure to a heavy-duty pad developed by the Authority in 2020 where the Veolia/Peterson partnership decommissioned the topside.
The same two companies will dismantle and recycle the jacket over an eight-month period.
Ninian’s original operator Chevron installed the eight-legged drilling and production platform in 1978. Production started in 1980 and ceased in 2017.
04.26.2022
