Industry Database

Able UK

Shell Uk Oil Products Ltd

Allseas Global Logistics Limited

The single-lift removal of Shell U.K. Limited’s Brent Alpha platform from the North Sea has been completed in less than four hours and is the first offshore lift to utilise specially developed “horseshoes”.

Located 186 km off the northeast coast of the Shetland Islands in Scotland, Brent Alpha comprised a topsides structure supported by a steel six-legged jacket standing in 140m of water. Several years of planning and 15 months of offshore preparation, including strengthening and cutting the steel jacket’s six legs, culminated in the nine-second “fast lift” of the 17,000t topsides by Allseas’ heavy lift vessel Pioneering Spirit on 21 June.

The removal of Brent Alpha is the first offshore lift to utilise specially developed “horseshoes”: connection tools that clamp around pre-installed lift points called bearing brackets mounted on the upper sections of the steel jacket’s legs.

The Brent Alpha topsides removal project involves engineering, preparation, removal and disposal of the 94m tall, 52m wide structure.

Pioneering Spirit will now deliver the 44-year old structure to Able UK Limited’s Teesside decommissioning yard in North East England for dismantling and recycling.

Brent Alpha is the third of four platforms, after Delta (2017) and Bravo (2019), to be decommissioned and removed from the Brent oil and gas field.

For all four jobs, Shell U.K. Limited selected Pioneering Spirit. Production from the field continues through Brent Charlie, with Pioneering Spirit booked to remove the 34,000t topsides when the platform finally ceases production.

By Rebecca Jeffrey