Offshore staff
LEIDEN, the Netherlands – Heerema’s heavy-lift vessel Thialf has completed an eight-month long campaign to remove ExxonMobil Canada’s Sable Project facilities offshore Nova Scotia.
The Thialf arrived in Canada in early April and mobilized to the Sable field on May 1 to begin executing a sequence of separate lifts of platform components using a reverse-installation method.
The campaign entailed the engineering, preparation, removal, and disposal of seven platform topsides, seven jackets, and 22 conductors. Five barge loads carrying Sable platform components, weighing about 48,000 metric tons, were towed across the Atlantic by the Heerema tugs Kolga and Bylgia.
According to Heerema, components were typically transported from the Sable field to Chedabucto Bay to be sea-fastened before their transatlantic voyage. After dismantling at the Able UK decommissioning yard in Hartlepool, England, about 99% of the material will be recycled primarily into steel.
Following a project delay due to the global pandemic in early 2020, an onboard crew of about 300 international and domestic workers, aided by support vessels and helicopters, completed the work. The removals campaign involved multiple crew changes and was completed safely and without one case of COVID-19, the company said.
The Sable Offshore Energy Project was developed in the late 1990s, and produced more than 2 tcf of natural gas and liquids before production finished on Dec. 31, 2018.
12/28/2020
