CSO Deep Blue Starts Work in the GOM

Coflexip Stena Offshore reported that its new deepwater pipelay and subsea construction vessel, the CSO Deep Blue, has commenced operations for the Williams Banjo/Seahawk project in the Gulf of Mexico after successful completion of her first mobilization at CSO's new spoolbase in Mobile, Ala. The vessel is to install the Boomvang and Nansen fields deepwater export pipelines. The CSO Deep Blue is to undertake the installation contract of the export pipelines from the Boomvang and Nansen fields, located in 3,600 ft. (1,100 m) water depth in the East Breaks blocks 643 and 602, to a platform located in 365 ft. (110 m) water depth in the Galveston area, block 244. The contract work scope for the vessel includes the installation of more than 100 miles of rigid pipeline and steel catenary risers (SCRs), with diameters ranging from 12-in. to 18-in., and tie-in to the fields SPAR platforms using SCRs. The vessel started operating from CSO's newly established rigid pipe spoolbase in Mobile, after having successfully completed deepwater pipelaying trials in the Atlantic Ocean and in the North Sea. The base is intended to support her offshore pipelay and construction work in the Gulf of Mexico. It provides a facility for assembly, storage, spooling or loading of rigid pipelines prior to installation in deepwater by the two CSO reelships, CSO Deep Blue and CSO Apache. Still operating in the ultra deepwaters of the Gulf of Mexico, the CSO Deep Blue will further demonstrate her unique and versatile pipelaying capabilities later in 2002 and 2003, working on NaKika for Shell, where she will install the deepest ever pipe-in-pipe system using the J-Lay solution, and the deepest ever fully reeled SCR as well as the deepest ever pipe-in-pipe SCR.