As part of an offshore decommissioning project for a major U.S. oil company in the Gulf of Mexico, a stub had to be removed within a short time frame in the last quarter of 2018.
The platform operator employed two leading decommissioning experts, specialised in offshore services, to carry out the cutting work. After some initial difficulties, it soon became clear that conventional cutting technology would not be sufficient to get the job done. The oil company therefore referred to the professional Norwegian decommissioning company 1Diamond AS, who – together with TYROLIT – offers the respective technology for demanding underwater cutting.
Cutting great diameters under challenging conditions
The task included cutting a 50 mm thick caisson sleeve with a diameter of 4 m as well as 76 mm of concrete and the respective 76 mm thick caisson with a diameter of 3.9 m at 4.5 m below sea level. The 1Diamond Green Sawfish System came highly recommended as well as the application of a step-by-step approach for this challenging project in order to identify potential difficulties with deployment and cutting operations on time, and to bypass them, if necessary. The cutting of the stub took the crew four days.