Offshore staff
HOUSTON – SOFEC has received an engineering, procurement, and construction contract to supply a catenary anchor leg mooring (CALM) buoy for installation off the coast of Yemen.
The buoy will be built in theMiddle East and delivered in 3Q 2015. SOFEC will additionally assist in offshore commissioning activities.
The buoy is designed to weathervane with a tanker moored, and to remain in service in moderately high winds and waves. The weathervane capability should allow continual transfer of liquid hydrocarbons, regardless of vessel heading.
According to SOFEC, the buoy can moor tankers up to 300,000 dwt in a water depth of around 32 m (105 ft). It will be permanently moored with six symmetrically arranged anchor legs connected to the seafloor via piled anchors.
It will be linked to a new 36-in. pipeline using flexible submarine hoses that will allow liquid product to flow between the geostationary fixed pipeline and the floating CALM buoy system. Similar flexible floating hoses will provide the flow path from the CALM buoy’s rotating turntable to moored tankers.
SOFEC previously delivered the turretmooring system for the SEPOC SAFER FSO in 1988, which was contracted by Yemen Hunt Oil Co. in 1986. This was the largest FSO in the world at the time, the contractor claims, at 409,000 dwt, and it is still in operation.
07/01/2014
