The ultimate goal of this project was to make ready for the repair of a broken FPSO mooring line that was a major integrity threat to the FPSO and that the client had committed to government authorities to repair in summer 2008.

The project had been instigated in January 2007 and presented major technical and logistic challenges. Many obstacles were overcome including a major change of base case from refurbishing the existing winch to replacing it after finding it was no longer fit for service.

Some key aspects of the project:

• The project included carrying out high pressure water jet cutting close to existing hydrocarbon process lines and the installation of a new winch in a confined space where the envelope had only 100mm clearance.
• From Q1 2007 the commitment was to have the winch fitted and commissioned by mid July 2008. The winch was handed over fully commissioned on the 12th July 2008, within budget.
• The project used innovative animations of the winch removal and replacement, which were a great help in carrying out hazids / hazops and constructability reviews.
• The project challenged the need to carry out offshore spooling of the winch wire. This lead to a £1m reduction in the offshore scope whilst at the same time reducing risk.
• The replacement winch performed as designed leading to a successful repair of the broken FPSO mooring line.

This project was supported by one of Agile’s consultants – a former Royal Navy Lieutenant Commander who joined Agile in April 2006 to work on another FPSO project - a swivel repair that had to be performed off-station.

This consultant joined Agile direct from the Royal Navy with many years experience in the maintenance and re-fit of naval vessels at a senior technical and managerial level but no previous Oil & Gas industry experience.

His experience and managerial skills from the armed forces proved directly transferable making him a particularly valued addition to the project team. He is currently working in Norway on the replacement of an offshore loading facility.

Update: Further information on this work may be found on page 8 of the May 2009 issue of 'Marine Engineers Review' an IMarEST monthly publication.