Rapid Mooring Support in the Gulf of Mexico

Subsea services provider InterMoor Inc. provided Anadarko Petroleum Corporation with rapid hook-up services for its Heidelberg truss spar in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico after stepping in at short notice for another contractor.

The company hooked up the 80,000 bbl/d spar to three mooring lines in Green Canyon block 860, offshore Louisiana, at a water depth of 5,300 ft (1,600 m). The project’s original contractor then resumed the job and completed the remaining six mooring lines along with the completion of the spar installation.

InterMoor initiated the engineering work in March 2015, began offshore work in early June and completed its part of the hook-up in July.

Todd Veselis, manager of projects, InterMoor, said, “Our client required a high level of responsiveness to ensure the project remained on schedule. Our extensive experience in mooring all types of floating oil and natural gas facilities and our ability to adapt our previous procedures in just a month meant we could mobilize vessels quickly and efficiently, while assuring safety in execution.” 

InterMoor mobilized five vessels from Fourchon, La., and provided crews for each. This involved more than 40 InterMoor staff on two tugs and three anchor-handling vessels. The Kirt Chouest and the Dino Chouest were the main anchor-handling vessels and a third acted as a support vessel between them and the platform. These vessels, as well as McDermott’s DB 50, maintained station keeping for the spar and completed the hook-up operations to get the spar ‘storm safe.’

Previously, InterMoor had fabricated some suction piles for the Heidelberg project in February 2015 and provided representatives during the installation of the Lucius spar, which is identical to the Heidelberg, in 2013.