ALE completes topside load-out in Russia

ALE was contracted to perform the engineering, weighing, jacking, load-out and offshore pulling operations of the topside, as well as the mooring and ballast supervision for the project in Astrakhan.

The first stage of the project has started in November 2017 and involved jacking of the topside to 1.5m, and weighing of the topside so the client could integrate skid beams in between the topside and the desk-support frame underneath.

In December, ALE performed the mooring and pulling operations using four SJ600 strand jacks and two 300t capacity breakout jacks to load-out the topside onto the transport barge in just one day.

David Le Masurier, project engineer for ALE, offshore services, said: “We are delighted to successfully complete this complex operation. As the desk-support frame had to incorporate the offshore skidways, leading to a large transverse centre of gravity, it made the structure more challenging to control during the ballasting operations. By utilising our in-house-designed strand jack monitoring software and the barge’s internal ballast monitoring, we were able to overcome and correct any deviation of the structure.”

The next phase will involve the offshore skidding of the topside on to the substructure during the floatover operations in the Caspian Sea. This is expected to start in 2018.