First North Sea Cygnus jacket sails away

May 12, 2014
The Alpha wellhead jacket for GDF Suez E&P UK’s Cygnus field has departed Scotland and is sailing to its offshore location in the UK southern North Sea.

Offshore staff

METHIL, UK – The Alpha wellhead jacket for GDF Suez E&P UK’s Cygnus field has departed Scotland and is sailing to its offshore location in the UK southern North Sea.

Burntisland Fabrication (BiFab) built the 39.7-m (130-ft) high, 1,146-metric ton (1,263-ton) structure at its yards in Methil and Burntisland on the Scottish east coast. It took roughly a year to complete following cutting of first steel in May 2013.

BiFab is also building Cygnus’ three other platform jackets, with a total tonnage of 8,000 metric tons (8,818 tons). Jacket numbers two and three are expected to be completed this summer followed by jacket number four in April 2015.

Jean-Claude Perdigues, managing director of GDF Suez E&P UK, said: “Offshore deployment is now well under way, with other subsea andtopside infrastructure already en route to site, 150 km (93 mi) off the coast of Lincolnshire.”

05/12/2014