Fabricator's focus switches to modular living quarters

Over the past three years, Eiffel's fabrication powers have been tested in four diverse offshore projects. The last of these, a workover rig for a Libyan gas field, is due for delivery late this summer.

The unusually busy schedule for the company started November 2001, with the award of the drilling module for AIOC's Central Azeri platform, off Azerbaijan. Although the order was shipped out on time last summer from Eiffel's yard in Fos-sur-Mer, the final weight - 3,700 tonnes - was 1,500 t above the tendered figure. But as Marcel Dubreuil, Eiffel's Offshore Division Director points out, the original tonnage was not in line with the eventual topsides specifications, which grew as the project progressed.

Most of the weight increase came from additional process equipment, and BP's insistence on an automated drillfloor for safety purposes. "At the end of 2002," Dubreuil says, "when we were working on detailed engineering with Sofresid Aquitaine, we actually came up with an overall figure of 4,000 t. This was not acceptable to our clients - they gave us the challenge of cutting that amount by 300 t. Working with AIOC, we implemented changes to meet our target. These included a general use of higher strength steel, S460, in place of S355 for primary steel; switching to GRP grating instead of conventional steel; and weight reductions where possible through optimizing our building methods."

The drilling module was split into packages to enable shipment on barges through the Don/Volga canal system to SPS' yard in Baku. They have since been assembled into the platform's topsides and will be installed on the ACG field by Saipem this summer. At BP's insistence, Eiffel personnel assisted AIOC's construction team with hook-up operations in Baku.

Cobo gas-lift

This February, Fos also delivered a 500 t compression module to introduce gas lift on Total's COB P1 production platform on the Cobo field offshore Angola. The new module has since been installed by Saibos - the platform, which was also built by Eiffel in the mid-1990s, had always been configured to take gas lift equipment at a future point. Currently, the platform is undergoing a general re-vamp prior to hook-up this July. The gas-lift system should start operating during the fall.

Eiffel is at present putting finishing touches to the structures for a new concept commissioned by Agip for its Sabratha wellhead platform in Libyan waters. The Fast Moving Workover Rig is a modular, 'self-installing' equipment set that can be demobilized quickly to any tender-assist rig or jack-up. In addition to workovers, it can be used to complete the final 2-300 meter sections of wells. Sabratha is a major new development designed to take gas from off and onshore fields in Libya both to local markets, and north to the Italian grid via a subsea trunkline terminating in Sicily.

Early last year, Eiffel supplied an accommodation module for Total's giant Amenam platform offshore Nigeria. According to Dubreuil, the operator has since declared it the best quality oilfield living quarters in West Africa. "If companies agree to pay an extra 3%, we can provide the extra quality," he claims. "In this case, the improvement came through upgrading to two-bed rooms, each 15 m square, with a higher standard of furniture. Also, our suppliers from western France transferred technologies applied to cruisers for their main client, Chantiers de l'Atlantique."

Eiffel has since bid for further living quarters in West Africa and the Kashagan development in the Kazakh sector of the Caspian. This time it is pitching a new in-house concept for modular living quarters, which has been approved by Bureau Veritas as suitable for offshore application. "The modular system is based on a double-cabin module with standardized fabrication," Dubreuil explains, "and leads to reduced work for the assembly in situ. For offices and technical rooms, it is designed to offer a large amount of space and total flexibility for all arrangements the client might want.

"Fabrication and installation can be performed easily at the local yards of all offshore sectors, thereby satisfying local content requirements. Assembly requires only a minimum of logistics mobilization, such as cranes, scaffolding and electrical power. Assisting foreign countries with technology transfer is part of our strategy."

At Kashagan in the Caspian, the specification is for 180-bed quarters for at least one shallow-water production barge. Here the design must also take into account extreme winter weather, and the dangers associated with H2S in the field's associated gas.