Shell Topsides Lift Sets World Record

Allseas’ heavy lift and pipelay vessel Pioneering Spirit set a world lifting record with the safe and successful removal of Shell UK’s 24,000 ton Brent Delta platform topsides from the North Sea on April 28 2017, said both Shell and its contractor Allseas.

It is part of the process, run by Shell, of decommissioning the Brent oil and gas field.

Located in the Brent oil and gas field, 186 km off northeast Shetland, Brent Delta's topsides sat on a three-legged gravity-based structure in 140 meters of water. The topsides were since sea-fastened on board Pioneering Spirit for transport to the Able UK scrapping yard in Teesside, northeast England.

Shell undertook a consultation earlier this year on options for decommissioning its Brent oil and gas field structures. Brent has produced some 3bn barrels of oil equivalent since it started production in 1976, almost 10% of UK production to date, but Brent Delta stopped producing 2011 followed by Brent Alpha and Brent Bravo in 2014, although Brent Charlie will continue producing.

Fast lift of the Delta topsides (Photo credit: Allseas / Hagelstein)

Given likely costs to UK taxpayers of removing old North Sea oil and gas platforms, a debate is expected to grow about whether some clean steel structures should be left in situ, to become potential sealife reefs, rather than completely removed and scrapped as current regulations spell out.

Mark Smedley