Impressive Offshore Project from Coordinadora, Spain
9th January 2015
Founding PCN members in Spain, Coordinadora Internacional de Cargas have recently carried out the impressive transportation of 2 concrete gravity-based structures for the offshore industry. The outstanding project involved moving the concrete cassions, which had unitary weights of 11,700mt & 10,900mt and maximum drafts of 10.5m & 10m respectively, from Cartagena (Spain) to Invergordon (Scotland).
The scope of Coordinadora's work included: coordination of the towing operations at origin (4 tugs); planning & coordination of the flo/flo loading operations; supervision of all weight spreading & securing arrangements; transportation in a chartered semi-submersible vessel; flo/flo unloading operations at destination; and towing by 3 tugs to the final delivery place. CEO, Mr. Pablo Higueras further explains; "The key factor was the command of the entire interface communications between the vessel superintendent, pilots, tugs and the client’s marine operations manager.
The expertise and implication of Coordinadora’s heavy lift & engineering department was critical to the success of this project. Our technicians developed the whole procedure, providing complete advice in the unique transport. The process involved several critical points which had to be assessed at an early stage to comply with the strict safety standards required in a complex offshore operation like this. The transport took a total of 13 days including loading, transit time & offloading and was performed with the assistance of Coordinadora technical personnel at every stage including at both origin & destination ports.
The selection of the vessel was also crucial as there were very few available which were able to perform a difficult semi-submersible operation as required, in particular due to the geographical conditions, draft limitations of the ship & cargo and important timing of the project. In spite of this, a successful solution was found and the caisson with the larger displacement had to be fitted with air lifting bags to reduce the draft to below the required operational limits. Coordinadora was present during the functional testing of the lifting bags to ensure the workability of the solution and that the results were satisfactory. This is a new example of the capabilities and commitment of Coordinadora to the new market requirements and standards of the offshore industry".
