Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct.11
By Leman Zeynalova – Trend:
UK-based ALE company has completed the offshore and marine operations they are undertaking as part of the Shah Deniz 2 project in Azerbaijan, said the message from the company.
ALE was contracted for a complex scope of work, involving the load-out of two jackets, weighing and jack-up of the topsides, strand jack skidding load-outs, ballasting and mooring as well as the offshore floatovers for two topsides.
The global heavy lifting contractor commenced the first stage of operations in July 2016 with the ballasting load-outs of the Production and Riser (PR) and the Living Quarters and Utilities (QU) platform jackets, weighing 13,977t and 12,369t respectively.
ALE was contracted by the jacket constructor BOS Shelf to provide the full external ballast system and engineering, as well as the ballast system design and calculations.
The next phase involved the weighing and jack-up of the QU topside for a separate client using the Mega Jack system.
More recently, ALE completed the floatover of the QU topside using their own ballast system and mooring winches
“This is a great project for ALE to be working on. We are involved in multiple, complex scopes of work with multiple clients and dedicated experts from different ALE branches and divisions – each with their own specialisms being deployed,” said Matthew Hodgson, Engineering Manager for ALE - Offshore Services.
The final phase involved the load-in of the load-out frame, followed by the weighing, jack-up, load-out and finally floatover operations of the PR topside.
As part of the Shah Deniz 2 project, gas production will increase from 9 to 25 billion cubic meters per year. The produced gas will be exported to Turkey and the European markets through the expansion of the South Caucasus Pipeline and the construction of the Trans-Anatolian (TANAP) and Trans-Adriatic (TAP) gas pipelines.
A contract for development of the Shah Deniz offshore field was signed on June 4, 1996. The field's reserve is estimated at 1.2 trillion cubic meters of gas.
The project shareholders are BP (28.8 percent), AzSD (10 percent), SGC Upstream (6.7 percent), Petronas (15.5 percent), Lukoil (10 percent), NICO (10 percent) and TPOC (19 percent).
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