Keeping busy

Meg Chesshyre speaks with Heerema Fabrication Group’s CEO Koos-Jan van Brouwershaven about the firm’s activity in both the oil and gas and renewable markets.

The Culzean wellhead jacket, under construction.

Heerema Fabrication Group (HFG) is happy to report that all three of its Dutch yards have a reasonable work load, despite the fact that the overall level of business is much lower than before the oil price collapse. HFG’s smaller specialist facility at Opole in Poland is also fully occupied supporting the projects at the other three yards.

At the Vlissingen yard work is underway on a procurement and construction contract for two jackets for the central processing facilities (CPF) and the utility and living quarter (ULQ) platforms for Maersk Oil North Sea UK’s high-pressure, high-temperature Culzean field. Sailaway is planned for June 2017. The CPF jacket will weigh almost 8000-tonne and the ULQ jacket 6900-tonne. The fabrication of the cluster piles is split, six x 500-tonne each within Heerema Hartlepool, in England, to add UK content, and two x 600-tonne each at Zwijndrecht along with 1500-tonne scope for legs and risers.

HFG completed the 6600-tonne Culzean wellhead jacket and 400-tonne access deck (WAD) for Maersk Oil this April. Heerema Vlissingen constructed the jacket, while the WAD with the access ways, was built by Heerema Hartlepool. The platform was then installed by sister company Heerema Marine Contractors’ (HMC) semisubmersible crane vessel Thialf. Brouwershaven explains that the construction of the wellhead jacket was quite challenging due to the twisted base design that allows better access for the drilling rig.

The Montrose BLP sailaway in April. Photos from HFG.

The Vlissingen yard has secured a significant contract in the renewables sector from Petrofac for the procurement and construction of the 5300-tonne jacket and 600-tonne piles for the HVDC substation for the German sector BorWin3 project. Sailaway is scheduled for March 2018. HMC has the transport and installation contract. Engineering will be carried out by Petrofac. HFG has previously built the DolWin Alpha and HelWin Beta platforms.

Earlier, Petrofac awarded Heerema Hartlepool an approved for fabrication contract for fabricating the substation platform for the Galloper wind farm, comprising a 1900-tonne topside and a 1700-tonne jacket. Project engineering and procurement are being undertaken by Petrofac as part of the GE Petrofac consortium. Sailaway of the platform is scheduled early in 2017. Galloper is an extension to the Greater Gabbard wind farm, but is being developed as an entirely separate entity. In 2008, the Greater Gabbard topsides transformer platform was Heerema Hartlepool’s first engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) project in the offshore wind energy sector.

The 10,500-tonne Montrose bridge linked platform topside for Talisman Sinopec Energy UK sailed out from Heerema Zwijndrecht in April. It was installed in the field by the Thialf in May.

In April HFG completed Oranje-Nassau Energie’s unmanned sustainable satellite platform P11 with a 400-tonne topside and a 600-tonne jacket.

Heerema Zwijndrecht is now progressing with the EPC scope for Statoil’s Oseberg Vestflanken 2, 900-tonne unmanned wellhead platform due for delivery in May 2017. The first cut of steel took place in June 2016. The jacket will weigh about 4000-tonne. It will be equipped with piles rather than suction buckets. Brouwershaven says this is a novel solution for the Norwegian sector, although quite common elsewhere. “We call it ‘a dry tree on a stick. It’s lean and mean, and we believe that it is the way forward to save costs,” he says.

Brouwershaven adds that while the yards are less busy, HFG has embarked on an internal process, first initiated a couple of years ago, called Back2Basics, looking at how “to become the best cost provider in the broadest sense of the word, not only being the cheapest, but also providing the best product, quality-wise, time-wise and price-wise.” The group’s dedicated innovation center, which opened in Zwijndrecht last November, is pursuing a research and development program, including the development of a welding robot. The group is also working on a series of safety videos covering hand and eye injuries, trip and falls, falling objects and hearing protection.