Allseas removes another ageing North Sea giant

Pioneering Spirit  has successfully completed her third and final decommissioning job of 2020,  single-lift removal of the North Sea’s 14,200 t Ninian Northern topsides.

Just days after delivering the Tyra flare jackets to Sagro’s recycling yard in Vlissingen, the Netherlands, the world’s largest construction vessel was back north of the Shetland Islands pulling more decommissioned facilities out of the North Sea.

Completed Friday morning, 28 August, the  removal operation took 2 hours, from connecting the vessel’s topsides lifting beams to the platform to the lift, ensuring environmental emissions from the removal activities were kept to a minimum with the efficient vessel systems.

Safely on board after a 7-second “fast-lift”, the former drilling and production topsides is now on its way to the Peterson-Veolia yard in Dales Voe, Shetland, for recycling. The facility will target over a 97% reuse/recycle ratio and create a number of jobs over the period the topsides is dismantled.

This morning’s lift concludes a busy 2020 heavy lift season, during which Pioneering Spirit  removed more than 57,000 tonnes of steel – equal to 8 Eiffel Towers! – out of the North Sea’s Brent oil and Tyra gas fields, and delivered the structures to yards in Denmark, the Netherlands and the UK.

Read more about the Ninian Northern removal project.

Read our press release.