The motor vessel Pioneering Spirit completed its first heavy lift 100 kilometres off the coast of Norway on Monday. The Maltese-flagged vessel removed a Repsol oil platform which has been unmanned since 2012. This is the first time that a vessel lifted a platform of this size out of water. Before Pioneering Spirit, workers had to dismantle the platform, module by module.
Pioneering Spirit is one of the World’s biggest ships at 382 metres of length and 124 metres’ width. It is a little shy of the length of four football fields and can lift an impressive 48,000 tonnes; the weight of approximately 32,000 cars. The Pioneering Spirit has 6 special purpose cranes, space for 27,000 tonnes of pipes and a massive helipad on its deck. It can work in any water depth, in polar regions and hostile seas.
The vessel is very well posed for a break in the market for scrapping ageing North Sea equipment. Numerous oil platforms in the North Sea are set to be decommissioned over the next ten years. The vessel was built for single-lift-installation and removal of large offshore, oil and gas platforms. With its double hull, it can straddle a platform and lift the top part with eight sets of lifting beams.