ALE sets jacking record with Berkut topsides lift
Russell McCulley
Senior Technical Editor
Afteryears oftechnologydevelopment and project planning, heavy-lift spe- cialist ALE has completed the suc- cessful lift of the 42,780-metric ton ( 47,156-ton) topsides for the Berkut
platform, an operation that the UK-based
company claims is by far the heaviest such
jacking operation in history.
The 11-hour procedure took place at the
Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering (DSME) yard in Korea using ALE’s Mega
Jack system confgured for a lift capacity of
60,000 metric tons ( 66,139 tons). Scheduled
to leave the yard in May 2014, the Berkut
platform will be installed on a concrete grav-ity-based structure at the Arkutun-Dagi feld,
part of the ExxonMobil-operated Sakhalin- 1
project in the Sea of Okhotsk offshore Russia.
Berkut is expected to be the country’s largest oil and gas production platform when it
goes into service next year. The structure is
designed to operate year-round and to withstand extreme winter temperatures, seismic
shocks, seas up to 16 m ( 52 ft), and sea ice that
can be as much as 2 m ( 6. 5 ft) thick. Water
depths at Arkutun-Dagi range from 15-40 m
(49-131 ft).
The topsides lift was nearly double the
previous jacking record, says Kees Kompier,
ALE regional director, Europe.
“This was the frst ever job of this size,” Kompier said. Although the onsite crews had been
through extensive training and conducted multiple simulations, the fnal stage of the 24-m (79-
ft) lift was briefy delayed so that workers from
other shifts could gather to watch. “They all
wanted to see the last move, because it is an exciting thing – it’s an unbelievably big platform.”
The concept for the Mega Jack system can
be traced to 2005. “We saw the market changing to bigger platforms, and saw that the equipment in the market at that time was not suffcient to cover the big projects that were coming
in the future,” he explained.
While the system has been used on some
civil engineering projects, “oil and gas was our
frst focus,” Kompier added. What sets the
Mega Jack apart, he says, is that operations
are conducted at ground level, giving the system stability and improving safety by eliminating the need to deploy workers at heights.
“We control the jacks very accurately by a
computer system, which allows us to create
stability at ground level. All things that have to
be done by people are on the ground level, so
Using its Mega Jack system, ALE lifted the Berkut production platform, shown at the DSME yard in
Korea, to a height of 24 m ( 79 ft). (Photo courtesy ALE)
there’s no work at heights – just inserting the
beams at ground level, sliding them into position, then conducting a stroke jackup of 1. 1 m,
or close to 4 ft.” The maneuver is repeated until the lift reaches the desired height, and the
entire procedure is conducted from a single
control room and monitored throughout by
strategically placed video cameras.
Kompier commented: “Safety was the main
driver in the design. And the second thing is to
have stability on ground level so that you don’t
have to do a lot of work on height prior to the
jacking or after the jacking.”
Establishing stability from the jacking founda-
tion eliminates the need for large bracing struc-
tures, and the welding and cutting operations
done at heights to construct them, he says.
For the Berkut job, ALE used 48 jacks divided among four towers, with each tower
consisting of three adjacent stacks for a total
lifting capacity per tower of 15,000 metric tons
( 16,535 tons). Planning began about three
years before the lift, when DSME approached
the company about the job, including the load-out of the platform and ballasting the transport
barge. ALE brought the Mega Jack proposal
to ExxonMobil, and an order was signed in
2011. An extensive period of engineering and
planning ensued, including movement and
stability analysis, risk assessment, and hazard
mitigation. “This has been an intense two-year
period,” he noted. “We’re fortunate to have a
great team with experience in different felds.”
Two weeks before the procedure, ALE con-
ducted a small lift to allow DSME to remove
construction supports and do some touch-up
work in areas that were inaccessible while the
supports were in place.
