Red7Marine, a leading Marine Civil Engineering contractor and Jack-Up Barge operator, has successfully contributed to Project Fast at Fawley Power Station, overcoming a unique and complex logistical challenge. This initiative is a key component of ExxonMobil’s £800m project to construct a new low-sulphur diesel facility at the Fawley refinery.
As part of Project Fast, Red7Marine was tasked with the precise and efficient transfer of 18 oil and gas processing units critical to the refinery upgrade. The operation highlighted Red7Marine’s expertise in delivering tailored solutions for complex marine engineering projects.
Working with the team at Sarens on behalf of end client, ExxonMobil, Red7Marine mobilised the Typhoon 3000 from its naval base in Portsmouth round to the project site in Fawley. The project, with many logistical challenges, required the transfer of nearly 5,000T (4,899.6). worth of refinery equipment from the water to the shore. The Typhoon 3000 was chosen for the project as the existing dock at the power station could not be used for the module unloading due to the width of the dock entrance and the size and position of the centre of gravity of the modules.
The 18 modules were transported by a heavy shipping COSCO barge from manufacturers in China, to Southampton where they were transferred onto a flattop barge and delivered to ExxonMobil’s Fawley site.
The delivery from a floating flat-top barge to the client site required a jack-up barge to act as an intermediate fixed platform, between the flat-top barge and the quayside. This process involved many operational and engineering challenges, starting with the navigation to, and positioning on site. This required detailed planning due to shallow water depths and a limited operational window over the top of the tide. With the assistance of local company Williams Shipping, the Red7Marine Typhoon 3000 barge and tug crews executed this without incident, safely transiting the narrow approach channel and securing the barge before the tide receded.
Once the Typhoon 3000 was positioned, the internal tanks were ballasted with 1,500t of water. This allowed the barge to sufficiently pre-load each leg to 1,400t ensuring that sufficient bearing capacity was established prior to the module transfers. The barge was de-ballasted and lowered ahead of the arrival of the first module.
Deck elevation of both barges needed to align to allow the safe transfer of modules from one to the other with the use of SPMTs. The hull draft required to achieve this would have rendered the Typhoon buoyant, therefore the team utilised the barge’s submersible features by opening the top and bottom covers of the barge tanks, allowing flooding of the hull, cancelling any buoyancy effects during the transfer period.
Once the flat-top barge was safely moored alongside the Typhoon 3000, 3m linkspans were installed between barge decks to allow a level transfer from one to the other. Once the SPMTs were on board the Typhoon 3000 could then jack to match the quay side level to allow the SPMTs to track over the second link span (16m) and on to the quayside.
The SPMTS carried the modules on road to be used in ExxonMobil’s Fawley Facility.
Red7Marine’s Managing Director, Kristen Branford comments: “This was a unique project with many logistical challenges. Benefitting from our own in-house engineering team we could mitigate concerns and provide assurance on the feasibility to both Sarens and ExxonMobil.
This has been a great project to be involved with, paving the way for cleaner and more efficient energy generation in the UK, as well as working closely alongside the SMS Group to deliver the scope of works safely and efficiently.”
