Sumandak starter sets Seaway on new course
  from: Asian Oil & Gas
  by: David Morgan
  Thursday, June 12, 2008

Seaway Heavy Lifting’s offshore workhorse Stanislav Yudin continues its globetrotting ways, the crane vessel having recently sailed further eastwards to complete its first Southeast Asian assignments. David Morgan reports.

Stanislav Yudin has been venturing out from its traditional North Sea base for the past ten years or so, wintering in places like the Middle East and, more recently, India. Now it has just completed its first jobs in Southeast Asia, a destination with which the vessel and its soon-to-be bigger brother Oleg Strashnov – currently under construction in the Netherlands – are set to become increasingly familiar within the coming years.

Stanislav Yudin (Yudin for short) applied the finishing touches to its maiden Southeast Asia assignment on 13 March when it installed the last of five topside modules for Petronas Carigali’s Sumandak field central processing platform in 50m of water off Sabah, Malaysia.

Seaway Heavy Lifting (SHL), the 16-year-old Netherlands-based joint venture between Acergy and LukoilKaliningradMorneft, did the job under subcontract to Sapura Crest Petroleum subsidiary TL Offshore as part of the Sumandak II waterflood project. It called for the installation of a 2320t module support frame (MSF) on a conventional 5500t steel jacket – installed by TLO itself last year – and then lifting into place some 6300t of topsides in the form of drilling, production, power generation and living quarters modules plus flare boom.

The MSF itself was close to Yudin’s 2500t revolving crane capacity (at minimum radius) and two of the modules weighed in at 1800t each, but on this occasion the installation contractor’s concern was not so much the tonnages involved but rather the conditions in which they were to be lifted. ‘When we were approached by TLO last October to see if Yudin was available for this job, we knew that it would mean installation in the monsoon period – not the best time of year of course!’ remarks SHL marketing and business development manager Aart Ligterink.

‘We knew that the environmental conditions would be different to the conditions that we normally experience in the southern North Sea area,’ adds Huib Oosterveld, SHL’s Sumandak project manager. ‘But when we got to the location we found the monsoon weather was extremely bad, much worse than one would expect based on statistical information. You can normally work in between the depressions coming over, whereas the monsoon in Malaysia is a more steady weather system which makes waiting on the right window and deciding when to start work extremely difficult.’

Yudin’s crew adapted well to these environmental challenges, installing the MSF at the end of February within two days in a very short but favourable weather window and completing installation of the remaining five modules and flare boom in a creditable six days when the next favourable weather window became available.

After the Sumandak work was completed, Yudin sailed to the East Belumut field in the South China Sea, off West Malaysia 150 nautical miles east of Kuala Terengganu. Here the vessel was required to install a 2350t deck, a 550t LQ module and ancillary equipment on to the existing East Belumut-A jacket in 72m of water.

This work was also performed for TLO but under a contract with Newfield Peninsula Malaysia.

Now SHL has a taste for more and Hans van der Veer, who joined the company on 1 April as its dedicated manager for the Southeast Asia region, sees no shortage of opportunities coming up in the area.

‘With a lot of activity in the Middle East, and also now in India and Southeast Asia, there’s a real need for new heavy lift vessels in the market, hence our decision to build a new state-of-the-art crane vessel, the Oleg Strashnov,’ says van der Veer. ‘We see in Southeast Asia a clear need for an independent installation contractor with extensive experience and a good track record,’ he adds.

World tour

Yudin will be staying in the Middle East rather than returning to Europe this summer, SHL having concluded that appropriate North Sea work is currently too thin on the ground to justify bringing her back for the season. The vessel’s movements last year alone give the measure of how much more varied and far-flung its workload is becoming.

Yudin started the year working on BGEPIL’s NRPOD project in India, installing the MTA and TCPP platforms in the Tapti field. The work here included a 460t jacket and 660t topside for MTA and a 1000t jacket with 54in piles for TCPP plus topsides including the 2100t east deck, 2000t west deck and 1500t compression module.

The vessel then headed for the Arctic at the request of SHL parent company Lukoil. Its services were required for positioning, pile driving and installation tasks associated with the offloading swivel for the Russian operator’s Foirot offloading terminal in the Barents Sea.

Back then to India in November to install ONGC’s Booster BCP-B2 compressor platform, bridge-linked to the existing BCP-B platform in the Bassein gas field some 50 miles from the Mumbai coast. The new platform, for which Larsen & Toubro is the turnkey contractor, will compress natural gas to a pressure of 60kg/cm2. SHL’s installation work here included a 2100t jacket and 60in piles, built at the Kencana yard in Malaysia, plus a 1900t MSF deck, two 1700t compression modules and a 1350t quarters module built at L&T’s fast-expanding Hazira yard in India. ‘That project was perfectly executed,’ recalls Ligterink. ‘Everything was ready when we arrived and there was hardly any waiting on weather.’

December saw the vessel back in a part of the Persian Gulf that has been a happy hunting ground for SHL in recent years: offshore Iran. Here, in a 20-day installation campaign made more complicated by the presence of a rig on site and the need for temporary drilling deck removal, Yudin installed two 2400t decks and connecting 80m long bridges for South Pars 9 and 10 on behalf of main contractor IOEC. The vessel has now been involved in all ten South Pars field developments to-date, with Huib Oosterveld, who managed the latest job before sailing for Malaysia, declaring: ‘Over the past many years IOEC and SHL have created a good personal and business atmosphere which again resulted in a project that was performed in a good spirit of co-operation without accidents and within the project time frame and allocated budget.’

Expansion mode

Following the decision to build a second vessel, SHL is now in corporate expansion mode. It has embarked on a recruitment drive that hopes to more than double onshore staff numbers – from 70 to 150 – over the next couple of years. Despite much-publicised industry skills shortages, Ligterink reports that this programme is going well. ‘It’s not like we are having to start from scratch,’ he says. ‘We are bringing in some new blood to build on the expertise we already have embedded within the company.’

Design work on the new heavy-lift monohull crane vessel Oleg Strashnov began in mid-2005 and SHL commissioned model tests at the Marin wave basin facility in the Netherlands to verify its speed and dynamic behaviour. Keel laying at the Merwede Shipyard took place on 3 April. ‘Things are progressing very well there and we are still confident in achieving the scheduled March 2010 delivery,’ says Ligterink.

With its patented dual-hull configuration and high transit speeds, the vessel is designed to deliver enhanced workability and greater operational flexibility. It will be equipped with both DP3 and anchors, with SHL looking to bring in more of its traditional heavy lift topsides work while at the same time pitching for tension leg platform and heavy template installation opportunities as they come along.

SHL’s other parent company, Acergy, has its own subsea installation agenda of course, but van der Veer sees the new vessel, which will offer 4500m2 of free deck space, more as an addition to their capabilities for the transport and installation of larger templates of around 1000t. ‘With its very big deck space, Oleg Strashnov could be a perfect tool for that,’ he says.

‘Quick turnaround and high lifting capacity are the key to this business and particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, where we strongly believe that our new crane vessel, capable of 5000t single lifts, will serve the industry’s future needs well,’ adds van der Veer. ‘That’s a very, very big area and Oleg Strashnov will sail pretty fast – 14 knots – so we will be able to mobilise relatively quickly from, say, Singapore to Australia or Japan, to install modules or complete platforms.We also believe this vessel could be a great advantage for companies looking to develop isolated fields in areas such as eastern Canada, the Mediterranean or the Arctic.’

Like Yudin, the Oleg Strashnov will have a fully revolving offshore crane. It will boast the highest hook heights for monohull crane vessels (see key features below), facilitating a wide range of tasks from deepwater template installation and dual hook upending of large jackets to heavy decks. Ligterink stresses the importance of employing a revolving crane for such work. ‘With a sheer-leg or a vessel in tiedback mode you are fixed and cannot adapt the heading of your vessel towards incoming waves,’ he explains. ‘In revolving mode, you can optimize the vessel’s heading to reduce its movements. So the whole lifting operation is under much closer control.’

Seaway Heavy Lifting is currently bidding several upcoming North Sea projects with a view to lining up a first offshore assignment close to home for the new vessel in the summer of 2010, but the Oleg Strashnov is unlikely to stay there long. ‘By September/October time I expect she’ll be sailing around the world, just like Yudin,’ says Ligterink. AOG

Oleg Strashnov: key features

• Monohull with fully revolving Gusto crane
• Lifting capacity: 5000t single lifts DP3 and anchors
• Transit speeds: up to 14 knots
• Length: 183m; breadth: 47m; draught: 8.5m to 13.5m
• Lift heights: 100m for the 5000t main hook; 132m for the 800t auxiliary hook
• Dynamic positioning: Kongsberg DP3
• Mooring system: eight-point; 2200m long mooring wires
• Anchors: 15t Delta Flippers
• Accommodation: 395 personnel
• Delivery from Merwede Shipyard: March 2010

Deoxygenation at the double

Norway’s Grenland Group recently delivered a Minox deoxygenation system for Petronas Carigali’s Sumandak II development. The system, delivered nearly two months ahead of schedule and on budget, was among the equipment items installed in the central processing platform’s topside modules. Commissioning is planned this autumn.

The system is designed to remove oxygen from seawater down to 20ppb prior to its injection into the oil reservoir, helping to minimize corrosion and bacterial growth. It was engineered in Norway and manufactured in Malaysia under supervision by the Grenland project team in Kuala Lumpur. The second such system supplied to Petronas, it is capable of processing 55,000 barrels of water per day.

‘This has been a very exciting contract for us,’ says Tor Friis, site manager for Grenland Group, Minox Process Solutions. ‘The delivery has shown that we are very much capable to adapt foreign business cultures, and it has given us valuable experience for our focus in Asia.’ AOG

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