Offshore staff
DELFT, the Netherlands – Allseas’ Pioneering Spirit has completed the single-lift removal of Shell U.K.’s Brent Alpha platform topsides in the UK northern North Sea.
According to Allseas, the operation involved years of planning and 15 months of offshore preparation, including strengthening and cutting the steel jacket’s six legs for yesterday’s 9-second, 17,000-t lift.
The vessel will now deliver the 44-year-old topsides to Able UK’s Teesside decommissioning yard in northeast England for dismantling and recycling.
Brent Alpha is the third of four decommissioned platform topsides that the Pioneering Spirit has removed from the Brent oil field, following Delta in 2017 and Bravo in 2019.
Production continues through Brent Charlie, with the vessel also booked to remove that platform’s 34,000-t topsides after operations finally cease.
The Brent Alpha platform is in 140 m (459 ft) of water, 186 km (115 mi) from the northeast coast of the Shetland Islands. As with Delta and Bravo, the 94-m (308-ft) high, 42-m (138-ft) wide topsides comprised multiple decks with living quarters, power generation, process systems, a drilling derrick, flare stack and other facilities.
According to Allseas, this was the first offshore lift to employ specially-developed ‘horseshoes’: connection tools that clamp around pre-installed lift points (bearing brackets) mounted on the upper sections of the jacket’s legs.
Once the Pioneering Spirit arrives at a nearshore location close to the Teesside coastline, it will transfer the topsides to Allseas’ cargo barge Iron Lady for towing up the Seaton Channel and load-in to the quay at Able UK.
This summer, the Pioneering Spirit will go on to remove and transport more than 55,000 t of decommissioned platform infrastructure from UK and Danish fields to disposal/recycling yards around the North Sea region.
06/22/2020
