Archive for the ‘FPSO’ Tag
First the good news, I’ve had another photo published in a magazine called Interactions, it’s a photo of Archie (my dog) with xmas socks on, which I had placed on my blog.
Now the bad news, I have been told by my employer that I cannot publish photos of rig’s, platforms, & AHV’s, basically anything to do with the offshore industry without prior consent from the owner, so rigmover.com as we know it is no-more!!!! I was thinking of changing it to http://www.heylookatmydog.com or http://www.doyoulikemycar.com but thats just silly. So in the foreseeable future you will have to settle for photos of the sea and maybe the odd sunset, on which I’m sure you will get bored of very quickly.
I have a link to Interocean on my side bar, this is not the company I work for, Interocean use some of my photos on their web site.
This is very disappointing, as I’m sure I have passed on a little of what goes on out there, I have had some great feed back and I thank you all for that.
P.S. Don’t go to far rigmover.com will be back, in some form or another.
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They managed to get me back on a helicopter and I’m back at work, been out in the North Sea since the 5th and we haven’t pulled an anchor yet!
It wasn’t a bad flight out to the rig, we got a fixed wing aircraft up to a place called Wick which is way up north near John O’groats, this meant the chopper ride was only 25 mins, also the chopper was new and had big windows which makes an easier escape route.
Not much really happens in the North Sea so I tend to only bring my little point & shoot. However we are close to a FPSO and a platform so thought I might get a shot to show you guys what goes on out here.
Here a tanker is coming in to unload the FPSO, the Maersk boat close by is there just incase and the other large boat is surveying the area.
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I have run out of things to photograph out here on this FPSO, as you can imagine its a lot of water or a lot of steel, not much else.
This caught my eye yesterday, again it’s the Fugro Symphony working with its ROV’s beside us, but in this shot you can see the cable/pipe, (we call it an umbilical) going over the side, you can clearly see the end of the umbilical, ‘the connection’ the ROV will connect this end of the umbilical to a winch wire, that winch is located in the turret, the winch will pull the umbilical up through the turret and connect it to a riser. Job done. Not quite.
The vessel then needs to loop the umbilical over a subsea buoy, these buoy’s are connected to the sea bed and float 53.6 meters up (water depth 112m) the reason for this is so the end of the umbilical does not rub on the sea bed when the FPSO is moving in rough sea. Job done. No not yet, the other end of the umbilical gets laid on the sea bed and placed close to the end of the pipeline coming from the well, this will be connected together at a later date with divers.
Here’s the big picture. You can see both ROV’s have been deployed.
I promise this is the last post on this subject, in fact FPSO now stands for: Final Post Seriously Over.
Have a great weekend.
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After yesterday’s post you are properly thinking, ‘hang on these guys are working on a floating oil refinery in the north sea, surly that can’t be safe’ and you would be right, it’s not.
But every bit of safety precaution is always in place and is always being updated, tweaked and refined to make sure everybody is as safe as can be.
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This is a reinforced steel tunnel that runs the full length of the ship, it’s constantly pressurised so no gas or fumes can leak in and can withstand a huge blast.
Here it is from above.
Ok now you’re thinking, ‘the tunnel will get you from one end of the ship to the other but how will you know the place you are heading to is safe’ it’s because it’s behind a huge blast wall, this thing is solid, made out of steel and concrete and about 200mm thick, the concrete will absorb the initial blast and the steel will protect us while we have tea and biscuits and await rescue.
Foot Note:
Safety is taken very serious in the North Sea as in the rest of the world by the oil industry and every effort is taken to make sure people go home the same way they arrive.
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I thought I would try and explain a bit about this FPSO I’m on. First of all the name FPSO= Floating-it’s a boat, Production-turning oil into usable oil, Storage-capable of storing up to 540,000 barrels of oil, Offloading-once oil has been refined it can then be offloaded to a tanker and taken to shore.
This FPSO is 260m long and 41m wide.
At the moment it is in the process of connecting a complex series of pipes and tubing to the turret which in turn is connected to oil and gas wells on the seabed. This first shot is of my navigation screen which clearly shows the FPSO in red and to the right the Fugro Symphony (FS), the 10 green lines coming from the centre are the anchors and all the other lines are the pipeline we will be connecting too, about 17 in total over 4-5 phases.
In this photo you can see the Symphony alongside with the ROV in the water and the large orange pipe getting lowered over the side, the ROV will connect this to another pipe on the seabed and the other end to us. This takes about 32 hours to complete.
This shot is of the turret, all anchor chains and the various piping, which transports oil to the FPSO, injects gas into reservoirs, or sends controls and signals to and fro, are connected up through the FPSO’s turret.
While the turret always stays facing in the same direction so that the various connections do not get entangled, the FPSO can rotate around it in order to always face into the wind. This ensures the stability of the entire FPSO and the piping system. Since the storm damage on February the 4th 2011 the repairs have cost an estimated 1 Billion dollars.
If anyone has any questions please write them on the back on a 10 pound note and send it to……not really, just ask and if I know it I’ll answer it, if I don’t I’ll find out.
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My short break at Cholmondeley Castle is over and I’m back at work, I flew out to the Gryphon Alpha FPSO (Floating Production Storage and Offloading) vessel yesterday.
We are positioning the FPSO back on its original position after what happened
last year.
During high waves and wind speeds of 56 knots, the Gryphon FPSO lost its heading and began turning so that the wind battered its sides. The FPSO began rocking. At some point in this sequence of events the FPSO began moving off its position. Power was also lost for 30 seconds.
These events lasted 10 minutes, by the end of which the FPSO had moved off its usual position. The oil and gas wells on the sea bed were shutdown immediately. However, in that short time, four of the ten anchors broke and serious damage, was sustained to some of the piping system.
All anchor chains and the various piping, which transports oil to the FPSO, injects gas into reservoirs, or sends controls and signals to and fro, are connected up through the FPSO’s turret, a central circular section in the middle of the FPSO.
The cool bit is the turret always stays facing in the same direction so that the various connections do not get entangled, the FPSO can rotate around it in order to always face into the wind. This ensures the stability of the entire FPSO and the piping system.
Photo from the web.
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