Recycling and decommissioning company Able UK (Able), has been awarded a contract for the disposal and recycling of four offshore structures in the North Sea.
The structures, including three platform topsides and one platform jacket, belong to oil company Shell and will be dismantled once further offshore preparation work and regulatory approvals have been undertaken.
Able says the project will see 97 per cent of the structures reused or recycled.
Under the six-year contract, the structures will be transported from the Brent Field site in the North Sea to the Seaton Port facility on the River Tees, using the purpose-built Allseas ‘Pieter Schlete’ vessel. Once in Seaton Port they then will be taken apart, with the metal removed for recycling.
Able UK Managing Director Andrew Jacques said: “We are delighted to have been selected to undertake this significant platform decommissioning project. This six-year contract will see the deployment of the very latest techniques and technologies in the recycling of these materials.”
In order to receive the structure, the Seaton Port facility will expand to house ‘one of Europe’s heaviest load bearing quays’ – estimated to weigh 60 tonnes per metre squared – along with ‘associated infrastructure’ at the northern end of the dry dock.
This will enable the topsides and jackets to be shipped to the new quay for dismantling.
The project will last for 18 months and should create approximately 100 jobs during the construction phase, with the recycling contract itself generating a further 100 jobs.
Find out more about Able UK and how it breaks down marine infrastructures, such as ships, in Resource 70.
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