Sparrows Group, and its cable and pipe-lay solutions (CPLS) division, has been awarded a contract by Oceaneering International, a provider of engineered services and products to the offshore oil and gas industry, to design and manufacture two 500-tonne powered and jack-able under-rollers.
The under-roller system is suitable for use with reels of up to 11.4m outer diameter, and provides up to 10-tonne of line pull at the outer reel diameter.
The under-rollers will be designed and manufactured at Sparrows Group’s Aberdeen facilities, before undergoing testing, and delivered to Oceaneering in Panama City where Sparrows Group will perform the assembly and site acceptance testing.
Local after-care support for the under-rollers will be supplied by Sparrows Group’s service center in Slidell, Louisiana.
The complete under-roller unit, when attached to a set of cradles, can be lifted via four lifting points. With packing structures for differing reel diameters the system can be used for differing reel cradles.
Both the drive and idler units can be individually moved to the location of the reel and cradles. The units can then be fastened to the cradles and with the use of hydraulic cylinders, the idler wheels can push against and under the reel - effectively lifting the reel off of the cradle which allows the drive wheel to rotate the reel to spool or un-spool the product. Once the spooling operation is complete, the idler wheel can retract to lower the reel back onto the cradles which means that the drive and idler wheel units can be unbolted and moved to another reel and cradle on site for further operation.
“The wheel drive and idler units can also be transported by forklift pockets built into the wheel unit frames - from either the side or the end of the unit - to allow forklifts to position the wheel units in more confined spaces at the client’s facility as well as for speed of relocation without the use of a crane,” said Stewart Mitchell, Sparrows Group chief executive officer.
Each of the two 500-tonne under-roller systems include two drive carriages, two idler/lift carriages and two spreader beams, one hydraulic power unit and one remote control unit as well as one lifting sling set and a set of interconnecting 15m deck hoses.
Image: Under-rollers/The BIG Partnership
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