The world’s largest vessel has arrived at the Brent Delta facility in the UK North Sea ready to perform the heaviest offshore lift to date.
The close to a million-tonne displacement Pioneering Spirit mega-vessel is set to remove a 24,200-tonne topsides facility from Shell’s Brent field, 186km north east of Shetland.
Brent Delta is one of four platforms on the huge and iconic Brent field. Discovered in 1971, it has produced about 4 billion boe since 1976, at a rate of 504,000 b/d at its peak in 1982.
The removal of the Brent Delta topsides will be undertaken in an operation that harks back to the pioneering days when the four, huge Brent platforms were first installed
Brent Delta, comprising three main levels (module support frame, module deck and drilling deck) sits on a three-legged concrete gravity based hull, in 142m water depth, and is 74m x 47m, 44m high to the helideck and 132m-high to the flare tip.
Allseas' Pioneering Spirit is also contracted to lift the other three Brent topsides, including the 31,000-tonne Brent Charlie platform, as well as installing the huge Johan Sverdrup topsides (weighing 19.000-26,000-tonne) for Statoil, offshore Norway.
Immediately following the Brent Delta project, however, it will be heading to the Black Sea to lay the TurkStream 2 pipeline. Then in 2018-19, the vessel will join sister vessel Solitaire, laying the twin-pipeline Nord Stream 2 over 1200km through the Baltic Sea.
Read more:
Shell's 24,200-tonne Brent Delta single lift - in detail
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