Offshore engineering provider Sparrows Group has won a contract to supply two 500-tonne cable-laying rollers in the US – thanks to company’s in-house engineering expertise and facilities in Aberdeen
The two rollers will be designed and manufactured in Europe’s oil capital before being delivered to Oceaneering in Panama City where Sparrows workers will also carry out assembly and site testing.
The jack-able under-roller system is suitable for use with reels of up to 11.4m outer diameter and it provides up to 10 tonnes of line pull at the outer reel diameter, which is particularly beneficial for steel-tubed umbilicals – a more rigid product that requires greater effort to spool around the reel.
Each of the two 500-tonne under-roller systems include two drive carriages, two idler/lift carriages and two spreader beams, one hydraulic power unit and one remote control unit as well as one lifting sling set and a set of interconnecting 15 metre deck hoses
Stewart Mitchell, Sparrows’ chief executive, said: “The under-roller design results in a more time and cost-effective system which improves the efficiency of operations.
“Additionally, the flexibility in design enables the user to reduce the number of heavy lifting operations on site by moving the under-roller to the reel instead of moving the reel to the location of and onto the under-roller.
“This maximises production time and spooling operations if the reels are located at favourable locations for spooling activities prior to undertaking operations.”
Pixie Energy is an incubator and a facilitator of strategic research and project work, focusing on energy regulation, policy and markets at the local and national level. Find out more about Pixie Energy