Heerema Vlissingen, one of the three production locations of Heerema Fabrication Group (HFG), successfully completed the construction and installation of the F3-FA mobile production platform of Centrica Energy in the F3-FA Field on the Dutch Continental shelf on 4 September.
Heerema Vlissingen was awarded the EPCI (Engineering, Procurement, Construction and Installation) contract in February 2009 by Centrica Energy for the largest gas platform of its kind to be installed anywhere in the world. This innovative gas platform is self-installing and portable so that it can be moved to a new location once production from the F3-FA field is complete.
The platform has a total height of 133 metres of which the legs are 75 meters long and weigh 1,200t each. The topsides have a weight of 4,000 tonnes and are 50 metres wide, 30 metres long and 30 metres in height. The total weight of the platform is 8,800 tonnes.
Various Milestones
“Completion of this platform has generated various milestones for our Vlissingen yard”, according to Frank Slangen, overall project manager of Heerema Vlissingen. “This unique platform is the largest to date ever built at our Vlissingen yard and has been fabricated in record-time of less than one year. It created approximately 1,000,000 man hours of work for the company and its direct subcontractors.”
Four Five-Storey High Suction Buckets
John Brusik, project manager Centrica Energy: “It uses four huge five-storey high suction buckets each big enough to hold more than 2.5 million litres of water to anchor it in position. The self-installed platform was towed more than 200 kilometres from the Netherlands to the F3-FA field.”
The F3-FA field is located in the north of the Dutch sector, about 240 kilometres north of Den Helder in a water depth of 40 metres. Centrica is developing the field, which was initially discovered in the early 1970s.
Picture: Centrica F3-FA platform after successful installation on 4 September
