Lankhorst Ropes won a contract by Aberdeen based Dana Petroleum to provide Gama 98 polyester mooring lines for the Western Isles Development FPSO vessel (Floating Production Storage and Offloading).
Given the weather conditions in the North Sea, and relatively shallow water depth, the cylindrically shaped FPSO will use a semi-taut leg mooring system. It will be moored with 14 polyester mooring lines in three clusters of 4, 4 and 6 lines at 250m water depth. Two clusters will have longer lines to the prevailing weather that, together with seabed chain, will provide the lateral restoring force needed to keep the production vessel on station.
The Gama 98 polyester rope tethers are made from high efficiency, parallel laid sub-rope cores within an outer braided jacket. During manufacture all of the sub-ropes are monitored to ensure they all have equal tension and length, ensuring a 100% torque free rope. The Western Isles Project (Dana 77% and Cieco 23%) will develop two discovered oil fields called Harris and Barra in the Northern North Sea, 160km east of the Shetlands and 12km west of Tern field. It involves a subsea development of at least five production and four water injection wells plus two exploration wells tied back to a new build floating production, storage and offloading vessel (FPSO) with oil export using shuttle tankers.
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(As published in the April 2014 edition of Marine Technology Reporter - http://www.marinetechnologynews.com/Magazine)