June was a busy month for Statoil’s Gina Krog in the North Sea. In the last weeks of June, the Gina Krog jacket was installed and the top floors of the living quarters were lifted into position at Stord.
Statoil provided a timeline of the operations and shared a video of the operation (see below):
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The living quarters module on its way to Stord. Image from Statoil. |
On 19 June, the barge carrying the Gina Krog jacket left the Hereema Fabrication Group's yard in Vlissingen, maneuvered by four tugboats into practically open waters.
The Fairmount Expedition tug took over and steered to sea with the barge in tow. The Hermod heavy-lift vessel headed for the same location in the North Sea, where it will install the jacket on the seabed.
The following day the Boa Odin tug left the Aluship yard in Gdansk, Poland, towing a barge carrying the top floors of the Gina Krog living quarters.
Having safely passed the windy southwestern coast of Norway they anchored at Apply Leirvik on Wednesday afternoon. There the first section of the living quarters constructed at Stord was waiting for the top module from Poland. The Uglen heavy-lift vessel arrived at the island’s main port, ready for the lifting operation.
On 26 June, almost precisely one week after the jacket left the shipyard in the Netherlands, the barge is tilted by trimming the ballast.
Weighing more than 17,000-tonne, including rigging and floatation tanks, the huge jacket slid slowly and under control into the sea, where it is left floating horizontally in the water.
“This operation has been planned for 2.5 years, and we had to change to a different heavy-lift vessel in the process. It is wonderful to see the jacket installed on the seabed, where it will remain for several decades,” Statoil said.
During the next days the Hermod heavy-lift vessel drove the platform’s 18 piles, each measuring more than 90m, into the seabed, and will now install the 265-tonne predrilling module before it heads to new heavy lifts.
Saturday morning at Stord: A few hours after the jacket was safely installed in the North Sea the module lifting is being prepared at Stord.
Uglen is ready for installing the top floors of the living quarters constructed at Stord. The place is buzzing with rigging activities and preparations.
At 9.30am the wire ropes are under tension and after a while the 212-tonne module is hanging in the air.
Uglen makes a small turn with the Poland module before it places it safely on top of the Stord module at 1.30pm. The lifting hooks are disconnected – Uglen has finished its job.
“The lifting operation went according to plan and without any incidents. The module from Poland was sprayed with seawater from the waves during the voyage and will be flushed with freshwater before we continue the completion and fitting of the living quarters,” Bjørn Iversen, project leader for the Gina Krog living quarter said.
The next major milestone will be to jack up the whole module and install the lifeboat suspension system from Harding in Rosendal.
More milestones are planned for this summer. When the jacket is properly piled into the seabed and the predrilling module is installed, the Maersk Integrator jackup drilling rig will arrive. It is a completely new drilling rig, delivered from Singapore earlier this year.
“Arriving at the field around the middle of July, the rig will prepare for drilling of the first production well at the Gina Krog field. This year is very exciting to Gina Krog, and the activity is so high that we are spending NOK 1 million per hour, day and night, during the whole year,” concludes Jan Einar Malmin, vice president of Gina Krog field development.
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