Aquaterra Energy has secured a major contract for a High Pressure Marine Riser System from Apache North Sea Limited.
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Skidding system for Seajacks
Aquaterra has commissioned a Transition Piece skidding system for the Seajacks Leviathan to assist with their work on the offshore wind development, Greater Gabbard.
The skidding system will be used for the installation of transition pieces on the Greater Gabbard wind farm in the North Sea, off the Suffolk Coast. Greater Gabbard is the world’s largest offshore wind farm in construction and a total of 140 units are being installed.
Aquaterra’s assistance was called upon when Seajack’s Leviathan, a self propelled harsh environment jack-up rig, needed to increase capacity to handle two 287 tonne transition pieces whilst maintaining vessel stability.
Aquaterra used their extensive engineering experience to design a solution. Robert Biggs, Engineering Design Manager at Aquaterra commented, “The skidding package positions a second transition piece under the crane by a moving trolley connected to hydraulic cylinders. This allows the client to load out with two transition pieces on the deck, greatly reducing the timeframe of their installation programme.”
The design is unique in that it uses a wheeled trolley to transit these large components rather than a rack and pinion system as traditionally used in the oil and gas industry for structures such as drilling platforms.
The skidding system was fabricated by Steel Services in Great Yarmouth where a full factory acceptance test was completed. The unit was then transported to Vlissingen in the Netherlands for the load testing prior to installation on the vessel. Further to the success of the project, Aquaterra is looking to expand into the renewable energy market.
