Spirit Energy completes multiple offshore decommissioning campaigns
(WO) – Spirit Energy is experiencing its busiest year-to-date in decommissioning with offshore campaigns across the CNS, SNS and East Irish Sea.
The most recent activity to complete is the final phase of the campaign to remove the DP3 and DP4 installations in the Morecambe Bay development in the East Irish Sea. Completed by Allseas with its Pioneering Spirit, the largest construction vessel in the world, a total of 9,000-tonnes of jacket structures were removed in tandem using the jacket lift system on the vessel and loaded directly onto the Iron Lady barge to be transferred to Fife for recycling.
In the Central North Sea (CNS), a 14-well P&A program across four fields - Chestnut, Birch, Larch and Sycamore- is being executed from Well-Safe Solutions’ Well-Safe Defender vessel. Chestnut’s well decommissioning has been completed, ending the 15-year story of the Chestnut field.
Nicholas Riley, Well Operations Manager, Spirit Energy, said, “The Chestnut campaign has been delivered with exemplary safety and operational performance; this was our ultimate aim when we set out to select our partners for the CNS abandonment campaign.”
In the Southern North Sea (SNS), during a single mobilization, Heerema Marine Contractors has successfully removed three topsides and three jackets with SSCV Thialf crane vessel, and DeepOcean is set to recover subsea infrastructure from six assets later this year. The recycling of all structures will be performed by Thompsons of Prudhoe in the Port of Blyth, making Spirit Energy the first users of the decommissioning alliance between the two companies.
Head of Decommissioning and projects at Spirit Energy, Donald Martin, commented, “Combining decommissioning programs and supply chain opportunities at portfolio level has created significant economies of scale with our partners leveraging the capability of their assets. This has also helped create opportunities to share campaign management responsibilities, leading to a lean and agile team. The recent successful completion of the removals of the DP3 and DP4 jackets marks a significant milestone towards our longer-term transition plan for the Morecambe hub being converted into a world-class carbon storage cluster.”
