Azernews.Az

The Azerbaijan International Operating Company (AIOC) announced that the jacket for the West Chirag platform built as part of the Chirag Oil Project (COP) sailed away yesterday from the Heydar Aliyev Baku Deepwater Jackets Factory (BDJF) for offshore installation, the company said.

The jacket transportation, launch and installation activities have been carefully planned and are expected to take 45 days to complete, including allowance for the weather conditions.

The West Chirag jacket is the heaviest jacket ever built in the Caspian and it was fully constructed in the country using local construction infrastructure at BDJF facilities. Over 2,000 people including sub contractors and specialist vendors, were involved in the construction works. Some 96 percent of the workforce was Azerbaijan nationals. The jacket was built by the local company BOS Shelf, now fully owned by SOCAR.

The construction of the jacket for the West Chirag platform was completed on schedule during the fourth quarter of 2012. It was then loaded out onto the transportation barge STB-1 at the quayside of BDJF and remained there waiting for the completion of the planned offshore activities including pre-drilling and subsea pipe-lay installation activities on the COP area.

"The jacket sail away is an important milestone and we are pleased to have achieved this as we move towards the topsides sail away this summer and first oil delivery from COP later this year," Bruce Luberski, Vice-President, Azerbaijan Major Projects, said.

"I would like to thank all people representing BP, contractors and subcontractors whose hard work has made it possible to achieve this milestone with excellent safety results. I would like to specifically thank BOS Shelf for their firm commitment to BP's safety standards throughout the 2-year construction period. I take a real pride in being able to say that the heaviest jacket in the Caspian was delivered without a single day off from work case throughout the 6.8 million man-hours achieved. This really is a great achievement and I am confident that the offshore installation will be performed with the same level of commitment to safety and quality".

The jacket has a total weight of 18,200 tonnes (which includes 1,500 tonnes of floatation tanks) and is about 185 metres high. It is comprised of 13 piles (12 plus one spare) with a total weight of 6,700 tons, seven risers, eight j-tubes and ten caissons. It will be installed at a water depth of about 170 metres.

ACG participating interests are: BP (operator - 35.8%), Chevron (11.3%), SOCAR (11.6%), INPEX (11%), Statoil (8.6%), ExxonMobil (8%), TPAO (6.8%), ITOCHU (4.3%), ONGC Videsh Limited (OVL) (2.7%).