3 May 2019

Allseas to Lift 48,000t Statfjord A platform

Topics: Allseas, Equinor Energy, Iron Lady, Kvaerner AS, Pioneering Spirit, Statfjord A platform

Equinor Energy on behalf of the Statfjord A Unit, has awarded Allseas a contract for the removal, transfer, load-in to shore and disposal of the 48,000t Statfjord A platform topsides. Allseas’ record-breaking heavy lift and pipelay vessel “Pioneering Spirit” will remove the topsides from its concrete gravity-based substructure in one piece after 2022.

Peggy Krantz-Underland, Equinor’s chief procurement officer, “The vessel has done an excellent job installing three of the four Johan Sverdrup topside structures. Now they get to show their strength at the other end of an oil field’s life cycle,”

One of the largest platforms on the Norwegian continental shelf, Statfjord A stands in 149 m (490 ft) of water in the centre of the Statfjord field, located in the northern North Sea, approximately 120 miles west of Bergen. The 84 m long, 54 m wide topsides has a weight equal to Pioneering Spirit’s single-lift capacity.

The Statfjord A platform in the North Sea will shut down production in 2022, 43 years after first oil, more than double the expected lifetime of the platform. One of the oldest platforms on the Norwegian continental shelf, Statfjord A was originally scheduled to be shut down in 1999. It has since then undergone substantial upgrading and the platform life has been extended several times.

Prior to the lifting operation, Allseas will increase the capacity of the vessel’s revolutionary motioncompensated topsides lifting system (TLS), developed in-house, from the current 48,000 t to a capacity larger than needed for this removal in order to take into account any weight deviations.

This award underpins the very philosophy of Pioneering Spirit, and the rationale of bringing her into the market.

Allseas has selected Kvaerner AS to demolish the topsides at its Stord disposal facility on the west coast of Norway. The topsides will be transferred from Pioneering Spirit to Allseas’ special-purpose cargo barge “Iron Lady” for towage to the yard and skidding onto the quay, capable of bearing the topsides’ enormous weight.