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Allseas’ single-lift installation/decommissioning and pipelay vessel “Pioneering Spirit” marked another milestone on 2 June 2018 with the safe and successful installation of the 22,000 t Drilling Platform topsides for Equinor’s Johan Sverdrup development on the Norwegian continental shelf.
This was the first platform installation job performed by Pioneering Spirit, and the heaviest installation ever executed in a single lift offshore to date.
Pioneering Spirit’s motion-compensated topsides lift system beams accurately positioned the topsides on an eight-legged steel jacket standing at 110 m water depth, after which the installation went exactly as planned.
The 147 m tall topsides was transferred to Pioneering Spirit by barge in Bømlafjorden, outside Stord, on 1 June. The vessel arrived nine hours later in the Johan Sverdrup field, located 160 km west of Stavanger, Norway, and operations commenced immediately.
The actual installation, from manoeuvring around the jacket, setting down the topsides and moving out of the 500 m zone, only took three hours.
The Drilling Platform topsides is the first of three structures Pioneering Spirit will install during the Johan Sverdrup field’s first development phase. The vessel will return to the field in the spring of 2019 to install the 26,000 t Process Platform topsides and the 18,000 t Living Quarters platform topsides.