Deepwater Spar Hull Delivery Takes Ship to Capacity Limit

The Boskalis subsidiary, Dockwise vessel 'Mighty Servant 1' has offloaded the 23,000 ton spar for the Lucius deepwater oil and natural gas project in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Lucius truss spar, measuring 184 meters (605 feet) long and 34 meters (110 feet) in diameter, was loaded onto the Mighty Servant 1 by means of skid on operation at Pori, Finland. The spar was transported 7,700 nautical miles and discharged at Ingleside, Texas and delivered back to Technip.

The Lucius Development is located in Keathley Canyon Block 875 in the Gulf of Mexico and is operated by Anadarko Petroleum Corporation.

Spars are usually offloaded over the stern of a semisubmersible heavy transport vessel. However, due to the restricted clearance space at Ingleside, an innovative offloading approach was required. The engineering team at Dockwise developed an approach whereby the spar was unloaded over the side necessitating the design and installation of new buoyancy tanks.

The length of the Lucius spar reached the Mighty Servant 1's carrying capacity limit extending nearly 40 meters over the stern of the vessel. With the commissioning of the Dockwise Vanguard early this year, Dockwise is strategically well positioned to accommodate larger structure sizes in the future.