Brent Delta News

Edward Heerema is founder and president of Allseas, which brought the world’s largest construction vessel, Pioneering Spirit, to the market. The company, which also brought innovation to the pipelay sector, has added its latest trick to Pioneering Spirit – its jacket lift system. But Allseas is also targeting deepsea mining and has its sights on the offshore wind market. Elaine Maslin caught up with Edward Heerema to find out more.The first time I met Edward Heerema was at the company’s offices in Delft, in the Netherlands.

The giant 25,000-metric-ton Brent Bravo oil platform topsides arrived at Able Seaton Port in preparation for its dismantling and recycling, said Peter Stephenson, founder and Executive Chairman of Able UK.The Brent Bravo, which stands 410 feet tall and 230 feet wide, is the second platform from the Shell Brent field to be decommissioned at Able Seaton Port—the first, the Brent Delta, arrived in May 2017. Both were transported from northeast of Shetland by the Allseas vessel Pioneering Spirit, one of the largest vessels ever built.After arriving off the North East coast, the Brent Bravo was transferred to a 200-meter-long barge, the Iron Lady, for the final part of the journey to Able Seaton Port where it is currently moored on Quay 6.

SafePilot from Trelleborg’s marine systems operation helped to pilot Allseas’ 200 meter-long barge, Iron Lady, from the Tees Bay to Able UK’s Seaton Port in Hartlepool which transported Shell’s 24,200 ton Brent Delta topside to Able’s facility on May 2, 2017.The Shell-operated Brent field, is located 115 miles east of the Shetland Islands, in 140 meters water depth, and has been in production since 1976. As part of Shell’s complex Brent Decommissioning Project, the Brent Delta topside, was lifted from the concrete legs of the Gravity Base Structure using innovative single lift technology.

Swiss offshore services firm Allseas is planning to build a vessel big enough to be able to remove the world's largest oil and gas platforms when they reach the end of their production lives, its chief executive said. The vessel, to be called Amazing Grace, is designed to remove the heaviest platforms in a single lift and could reduce decommissioning costs for global oil and gas producers, the firm said. It would be a bigger version of Allseas' existing Pioneering Spirit ship…

Kotug International’s offshore division has assisted Allseas with the transfer and transport of Shell’s Brent Delta topsides after the record-setting removal of the structure by Pioneering Spirit. Kotug was mainly involved in the assistance of the cargo barge Iron Lady during the transfer of the topsides from the Pioneering Spirit to the Iron Lady and the ensuing tow of the barge to the Able UK decommissioning yard in Teesside, Northeast England. After the Pioneering Spirit lifted the Brent Delta platform…

ACE Winches has mobilized a six point mooring system to anchor the Iron Lady Barge being used on the Brent decommissioning project. The equipment, designed and manufactured by ACE Winches at its global headquarters in Turriff, Aberdeenshire is now in situ and being supported by a team of ACE Winches offshore personnel. ACE Winches manufacture a range of standard and bespoke drum winches, available in single or double drum configurations. Drum winches are designed to be utilized for hoisting…

Decom North Sea (DNS), the representative body for the offshore decommissioning industry, which promotes and facilitates collaboration and cost reduction, today appointed a new chief executive. Roger Esson brings over 20 years’ highly relevant experience as DNS continues to play a critical part in the development of the UK decommissioning sector. Having held a variety of leadership positions within companies ranging from SMEs to tier 1 contactors, his previous roles have included time with Stork Technical Services and Amec Foster Wheeler’s decommissioning division. He has played an active role in the execution of several of the UK’s most significant decommissioning projects - including the MCP01…

In a word, Pieter Schelte is BIG. Founded in 1985, Swiss-based Allseas Group S.A. is specialized in offshore pipeline installation and subsea construction. The company employs more than 2,500 people worldwide and operates a fleet of specialized, in-house designed and developed pipelay and support vessels. The company is known for its daring and imagination in ship design and technological innovation. The newest Allseas vessel, Pieter Schelte, is a huge ship, composed of two super-tanker hulls connected by a wide central work platform or slot, much like a catamaran.

Scottish nationalists are betting $2.5 trillion of hydrocarbons trapped miles beneath the North Sea could bankroll an independent Scotland, but winning control of the European Union's largest oil reserves would be no blank cheque. Scotland says the bulk of Britain's North Sea oil and gas reserves are in its waters, while London says any division would be subject to negotiations should Scots vote to end their 307-year-old union with England in a referendum on Sept. 18. Oil is the punch in Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond's pitch for independence: he accuses London of squandering the North Sea's mineral wealth and says Scotland would be one of the world's richest countries if it took control of its own destiny.

Decom North Sea (DNS), the offshore oil and gas decommissioning forum, will host a lunch and learn event to share valuable insight into decommissioning, including lessons learned from recent projects. The event will take place on Wednesday, January 15, at the Doubletree by Hilton Hotel, Aberdeen, from 12-2 p.m. The event will include a presentation from Offshore Installation Services (OIS), a contractor specialising in decommissioning project management that recently completed its 17th offshore campaign by permanently abandoning six wells in the Central North Sea.

Stork Technical Services, a global provider of knowledge-based asset integrity management services for the oil and gas, chemical and power sectors, won two awards at this year’s U.K. Oil and Gas Industry Safety Awards. Marc Brankin, Scaffold Chargehand for Stork won The Most Promising Individual category. Stork and bSolutions at Banff and Buchan College jointly won the Innovation in Safety award for establishing an industry-first Temporary Refuge (TR) Testing City and Guilds Qualification. Stork was presented with the accolades on April 24, at the U.K. Oil and Gas Industry Safety Awards annual ceremony held at Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Center in the U.K.