APACHE CALLATER PROJECT OFFSHORE OIL AND GAS GREAT TEAMWORK 14% RECORD TRANSIT TIME Project team and local community Steep incline 1.5 hours from Wick to Wester

TRANSPORTATION SCOPE

• Receipt of towheads ex-works at the Isleburn The project had stringent documentation require- workshop in Invergordon ments, and the deugro project team provided the • Self-loading and securing to truck prior to road following: haulage, under special order permits, to • Detailed project, HSE and project quality plan Invergordon Port on drawbar hydraulic trailers • Full method statements and risk assessments for CASE STUDY | APACHE CALLATER PROJECT • Transshipment via heavy lift crane at Inver- road transportation, port operation and on-site gordon Port onto sea-going barge jacking operations • Design manufacturing and supply of sea • Full method statement and risk assessments for Project Background/History Location fastening and grillage, along with required lifting operation Over the years, previous towheads have been Wick is a small town in the northeast of naval engineering • Detailed lifting plans moved through direct contract between Subsea 7 with a 38-year history of subsea towhead trans- • Direct roll-off at discharge port in Wick, via • Detailed marine manual containing: and equipment operators or haulers. In this in- portation. The subsea structures are fabricated hydraulic trailers assisted with cargo/barge- • towing manual stance, deugro () Ltd., member of along the east coast of Scotland and are regularly specific ballasting system • ballasting calculations the deugro Group, was the first non-asset owner to transported by sea to Wick Harbour, the closest • Road transportation from Wick Harbour to • mooring calculations secure such a contract. marine facility to the Subsea 7 launch site. Wester site under special order permit • contingency planning • Self-offload and transfer to Subsea 7 rail bogey • deck strength analysis From receipt of the initial tender request to final One way to transport the towheads to Wester and/or lowered onto stools • Barge stowage plans execution of the project, the deugro ethos “Minds is by road, through the center of town. The road • Roll-off operation plan, including full method over matter” was the driving force to deliver the pro- infrastructure through the town is extremely re- deugro (United Kingdom) Ltd. transported the two statement and risk assessment as well as a ject in a timely, safely and compliant manner. By strictive and commences with a 14 percent incline towheads, Skene and Callater, which are de- subcontractor interface strategy leveraging our market intelligence and in-house ex- away from the port. To facilitate the movements signed to form a complete subsea bundle. pertise, we ensured that we worked with the most over the years, various parts of the street furni- The documentation for this movement was issued suitable sub-contractors who utilize the correct ture have been modified to be removable, lamp Prior to the operational execution, the deugro in cooperation with dteq Transport Engineering equipment. The result of these factors ensured the posts have been hinged and other demountable project team conducted comprehensive port, site Solutions GmbH, also member of the deugro project was delivered within budget and safely. items put in place. and road surveys to ensure a smooth operation. Group and the deugro Group QHSES team.

Project Data

Client: Subsea 7 Project Owner: Apache North Sea Projects Group Cargo: 1 Callater towhead, 26,740 x 6,000 x 5,930 m, 211.50 MT 1 Skene towhead, 22,047 x 6,601 x 3,945 m, 129.57 MT Origin: Invergordon, UK Project Location: Wick, UK

Skene towhead on drawbar hydraulic trailers on the way to the Port of Invergordon The back end of the Callater towhead

2 3 PROJECT EXECUTION

The transport operation commenced at the fabri- The towheads were transferred to a flat-top barge, cation facility in Invergordon where the giant complete with support tug, which deugro steel constructions were self-loaded to the hy- had mobilized from Germany to Invergordon draulic trailers and then moved to the Port of specifically for the project. The specialized lead Invergordon, on the , in consec- tug was chartered utive operations. The first transport consisted of locally in Scotland. “deugro took the lead during the slightly smaller Skene towhead, and in this The movement took all operations as the Facility way provided a precedent for the second trans- place in December; portation of the larger Callater towhead. and as such, weath- Maintenance and Construction er observation and manager.” Upon arrival at Invergordon Port, the towheads forecasting was cru- were transshipped by a Liebherr LG1750-1 cial for the movement, since a clear three-day heavy lift crane—also contracted and managed weather window was needed to execute the by deugro. deugro took the lead during all movement safely and to ensure direct shipment operations as the Facility Maintenance and without sheltering or a return to the load-out Construction (FMC) manager, including plant and port. equipment, facility and subcontractor manage- ment, which enabled a smooth and controlled At Wick, the discharge port, in contrast to the operation to take place even with the involvement loading by heavy lift crane, the cargo was rolled of multiple contractors. off via ramps and using the same hydraulic trailers as for road transportation. The reason for this al- The deugro team was present until demobilization ternative operation was due to lack of RO/RO was complete; in other words, until base facility infrastructure at Invergodon and lack of an liability and responsibility was contractually available crane pad for the required sized Side Story: Pipeline i signed over to deugro as the principle contractor. crane at Wick. Bundle Solution

A pipeline bundle solution is a well- established alternative to installing subsea pipelines systems, as it incorpo- rates all systems required to operate a field into one single product. The carrier pipe can contain any combination of individual pipelines and umbilical com- ponents. The system is pre-assembled onshore before being launched off- shore. The bundles can reach 7.7 kilo- meters in length, with pipeline dimen- sions of 1.42 meters in diameter and a total weight of up to 10,000 metric tons.

Skene towhead placed onto stools Skene towhead hooked up and ready for lifting Key benefits: • Offers integration of subsea process- ing functions in a compact and cost- effective manner • Pipeline bundles reduce pipeline cor- ridor and system testing widths to a minimum, avoiding unnecessary con- gestion and opening up future devel- opments. • Carrier pipes provide a corrosion-free environment, reducing the need for in- dividual corrosion coating of flowlines. • By assembling processing units into an overall system and completing on- shore testing and commissioning, the entire system significantly reduces installation and commissioning risks.

Callater towhead ready for lifting Source: www.subsea7.com

4 5 At the RO/RO jetty, infrastructure improvement road traffic congestion as much as possible by and the pre-planning and significant engineering works were managed by deugro to ensure a safe timing the movement to avoid the start and end of works completed were critical to ensure safe and level roll-off point. This was essential, as pre- school days and times of high traffic flow. and effective load placement in order to prevent vious storms had had an impact on this location issues and ensure negotiability. The movement and left it in an unusable state. Various upgrades along the transit route were through the town was only effective due to the required; and although these were mainly well- great teamwork of all involved stakeholders, Following the roll-off operation, the transport established from previous movements, the safe, including the transport specialists, Subsea 7 operation was completed with the use of two temporary removal and later installment of these and the local community. highly special- items, including ized Trojan “The challenge was to negotiate the a dry-stone “Although I have shipped many larger overly heavy ballast narrow residential streets, with an wall and lamp dimensional and heavy-weight loads, this was tractors and posts, were probably a unique operation because it had one MAN overall length in excess of 40 meters managed by previously been executed along a challenging heavy duty and a rigid length of 27 meters.” deugro. Minor route so many times before by different con- tractor unit. The civil works tractors,” says Di Kenny, Operations Manager at additional traction and torque was required to were also completed to back-fill street curbs in deugro. “As with all our risk assessments and negotiate a steep incline on Scalesburn Road, order to prevent damage to the curb and mitigate method statements, we start from first principles which leads immediately from the berthing facil- tire blowouts. Steel plates were also placed on based on thorough pre-planning together with ity into the town’s center and that had caused the sidewalks and over manhole covers to ensure the client, other contractors and local subcontrac- failure of transportation equipment in the past. stability and safe movement of the heavy load tors, and all stakeholders.” passing over them, and to mitigate damage to For the remainder of the route, there were no the infrastructure itself. “Safety is paramount through all stages of the Skene towhead climbing the 14% incline of Scalesburn hill significant inclines so that the transport arrange- contract, and we worked very closely and suc- ment could be reduced, with the spare tractor Overhead cables were also in conflict with these cessfully with Subsea 7’s knowledgeable local units remaining in convoy for support if needed. significant loads and were lifted or removed, operations team to ensure that this difficult, and PROJECT ACHIEVEMENTS The challenge then was to negotiate the narrow temporarily, in advance to remove any potential very valuable, cargo was transported without deugro (United Kingdom) Ltd. engaged in exten- mented deugro on achieving one of the smoothest residential streets with the load, which had an risk of damage. incident or delay. Most clients don’t want to sive advance planning, forged new relationships barge roll-offs and clear-up operations in many overall length in excess of 40 meters and a rigid know about the journey, just the result, but on (including local Scottish service providers), and years. length of 27 meters. In cooperation with the local In many locations, the loads moved through this occasion, collaboration delivered results.” worked closely with Subsea 7 engineers and the police and highway agencies, deugro minimized pinch points with just a few centimeters to spare, project team to provide seamless logistics services All of the above milestones helped Subsea 7 and huge benefits to the project as expected complete many of the planned site activities from an FMC/principle contractor. The overall (especially welding) great success was possible thanks to the strong ahead of schedule, “Not only deugro’s client Subsea 7 support of the deugro Group member dteq so that the company benefited from the time saved, but Transport Engineering Solutions and the deugro was able to launch chartering team, who supplied detailed technical the towheads earlier also the project owner Apache, with an knowledge to and local presence for deugro than originally overall positive impact on the project.” and its subcontractors. planned. Likewise, Subsea 7 was delighted that deugro was there to deugro not only matched the service standards speed up the process and complete all goals with- supplied by previous Subsea 7 heavy transport in budget. In fact, Subsea 7 was so happy, and it subcontractors, but was also praised for exceed- was such a win–win situation for the company and ing expectations in many areas: its end user Apache, that one of their senior project • No safety concerns during the move team members sent a written statement to deugro: • No damage sustained to cargo, plant or “Hopefully we’ll see you around on a subsequent equipment, or infrastructure scope, and thanks again for your efforts on • Record transit time of Skene and Callater Callater. deugro’s overall performance certainly towheads—approximately 1.5 hours per move- attracted some attention internally and has put you ment from Wick to Wester firmly on our project/SCM radar as a strong alter- • Transparent working relationship developed native to the usual players we’ve used on previous with all stakeholders/subcontractors transport contracts.” • Minimizing traffic disruption/congestion for lo- cal residents and highways Not only deugro’s client Subsea 7 benefited from • Re-application and approval of special order the time saved, but also the project owner permit in record time upon change of fabrica- Apache, with an overall positive impact on the tion specifications project. Indeed, Apache confirmed that its North Sea Callater project had started producing Final checks prior to roll-off operation What’s more, the Wick Port Authority compli- early and under budget. Skene maneuvering through the Town of Wick

6 7 Contact: deugro (United Kingdom) Ltd. Unit 8, Windmill Business Village Brooklands Close, Sunbury-on-Thames Surrey TW16 7DY | United Kingdom

Phone: +44 2088310600 | E-mail: [email protected]

Visit: deugro.com /deugro