Three BigLift vessels in Payara project
Last year, BigLift performed three shipments for Saipem in the Payara project. The Payara field is located in the Stabroek Block, approximately 200 km off the coast of Guyana, at a water depth of 2000 m, for which Saipem landed the scope to instal the flexible risers, among other things.
The first vessel to sail in this project was our Happy Ranger in January. She transported an empty cable basket carousel plus spooling tower from Europe to North America for filling with product line. Then, in July, the basket and the spooling tower were picked up from Saipem Constellation to be returned to Europe by Happy Dynamic in a direct double banking and lifting operation, while Saipem Constellation was at anchorage off Chaguaramas, Trinidad & Tobago.
A little before this operation, our Happy Buccaneer had arrived in Chaguaramas from Schiedam, carrying two cable basket carousels filled with flexible risers, a spooling tower, six reels containing flexible flowline and project ancillaries. The carousels with a diameter of 20 meters and a height of 13.5 meters had been placed on the weatherdeck together with the spooling tower and some equipment that needed to be readily accessible.
The basket carousels, spooled with the flexible risers, each weighed about 2700 mt and pushed the Happy Buccaneer down to its maximum sailing draught of 8.2 m. With this much weight on deck, the six 400 mt reels had to be stowed in the vessel’s lower hold to keep stability below its critical limit. To offload and backload all the items on board of the Happy Buccaneer, numerous double banking operations with Saipem Constellation took place at anchorage off Chaguaramas over a period of five months, during which equipment was shifted back and forth using both Constellation’s and Happy Buccaneer’s cranes.
With all the material on deck, there remained little space to access the lower hold, which meant that the reels were placed only 0.5 m apart, demanding extreme accuracy while lifting the reels in and out of the lower hold. Nevertheless, despite the great weight of the heavy carousels, they could be loaded and positioned on the vessel without the need for extra grillage. Although the whole project with three vessels over more than eight months had its challenges in transports and lifts, we are proud to be able to report zero incidents during the project.
