The Pioneering Spirit straddles its twin bows around the Yme platform before securing the structure, cutting the jackup facility’s steel legs and lifting the 13,500-tonne topsides. (Source: Allseas)
The decommissioning of Shell’s Brent Delta platform in the U.K. North Sea will take place within the next few months, with Allseas’ giant Pioneering Spirit heavy-lift and pipelay vessel to be the high-profile center of attention.
The vessel will carry out a world-record single lift in removing the 24,000-tonne topsides from Shell’s Brent Delta platform in early summer 2017, with pre-lift preparation work including the design of underdeck lift points and strengthening of the module support frame. The work scope also will involve the cutting of the platform legs as well as the design and fabrication of lifting yokes, support stools and grillage.
Once carried out, the topsides will be transferred to the Iron Lady vessel for transportation to the dismantling yard in Hartlepool, U.K.
Shell’s other three Brent platforms—Alpha, Bravo and Charlie—also will have their topsides removed by the Pioneering Spirit in a later phase under a contract awarded to Allseas in 2013. The heaviest of those will feature one topsides lift of about 30,000 tonnes.
Black Sea job
Following the work on Brent D this summer, the Pioneering Spirit is due to move to the Black Sea to work on the TurkStream project in what will be its maiden pipelay job. The workscope includes engineering and installation of 900 km (550 miles) of 32-in. pipeline in the Black Sea in water depths of up to 2,200 m (7,218 ft). The line will link Anapa in Russia with Kiyikoy in Turkey.
Allseas also has work lined up for the vessel with Statoil for the transportation and installation of topsides for three platforms that are part of its Johan Sverdrup Field offshore Norway, currently under development. The topsides lift weights for those will range from about 19,500 tonnes up to 26,000 tonnes, with the first installation work expected to get underway in 2018.
The Pioneering Spirit has a topsides lift capacity of 48,000 tonnes and a jacket lift capacity of 25,000 tonnes and is expected to be increasingly used for decommissioning work, mostly in the North Sea, as operators wind down their larger mature field operation centers over the next few years.
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