Technip USA, supported by its contractor Jumbo Offshore have completed the installation of five free standing hybrid risers (FSHR’s) for the Petrobras America Inc. Cascade & Chinook ultra-deepwater project in the Gulf of Mexico. Transportation of the five buoyancy cans was handled by Jumbo’s Fairplayer. Installation, lead by Technip, was engineered and executed in smooth and successful collaboration. Technip’s construction vessels Deep Blue and Deep Pioneer, together with the Fairplayer, installed the buoyancy cans and risers in winter conditions and with zero HSE recordable. The five FSHR’s are the deepest risers of this type installed in the world to date.
The Fairplayer (one of Jumbo’s two DP2 offshore Heavy Lift Vessels) loaded the buoyancy cans from Technip’s yard in Pori (Finland) and transported them to the Cascade and Chinook offshore location in the Gulf of Mexico (USA). There, she met up with Technip’s Deep Blue and Deep Pioneer to commence installation.
The scope of work was coordinated via the Technip Offshore Construction Managers and assisted by having key members of Technip’s crew onboard the Fairplayer. The installation started with the Deep Blue deploying the riser in its entirety. The Fairplayer then moved in for a wet handshake, lifting the 2,300 m riser with the fore crane and placing it in a hang-off structure for connection to the buoyancy can. The whole assembly was then overboarded and lowered safely through the splash zone. Jumbo Offshore broke its own record, lifting over 700 t load offshore.
After lowering the assembly to 200 m, Technip made the connection between the riser and its foundation in the seabed at 2,500 m water depth.