11 november 2024
In de media: PortNews
Het Engelstalige magazine is de officiële uitgave van Promotion Council North Sea Port en de havenautoriteit North Sea Port.
In 2018, Sagro started its first decommissioning activities. Since then, the multidisciplinary company successfully executed various decom projects for the offshore industry.
“Our first decommissioning contracts were signed in 2018,” Abco Liek, manager at Sagro says. “These contracts entailed the decommissioning of various structures of the TotalEnergies Tyra Redevelopment phase 2 project. Tyra is Danmark’s largest gas field and for further processing of gas, the field needed new assets. Before these could be installed, the old ones needed to be removed.”
Extended and strengthened quay
Abco Liek explains, “The first contract for this project was granted by Allseas for the dismantling of four jackets. The work consisted of the cleaning, dismantling, recycling, and disposal of the structures with a weight of more than 10,000t. A second contract for the project was granted by Heerema Marine Contractors (HMC) and was executed in 2020 before the Allseas campaign, which took place in 2021. In this HMC project we cleaned, decommissioned recycled, and disposed of multiple topsides, bridges, flare towers, and a jacket, with a combined weight of more than 16,000t. As this was quite a large project, we decided to first extend and strengthen our quayside to have enough space for the safe reception of the steel structure. The existing quay was enlarged from 100m to 185m and part of the existing 100m was dismantled and renewed by a heavy load quay (15t/m2).
In 2020, we had to deal, like almost every company, with the effects of COVID-19 as we were only able to execute jobs with a limited employment of workforce. After that, things went quite well again and with the expected volume of offshore structures to be removed, we see a lot of opportunities for our offshore decommissioning department.”
"We have had a very steep learning curve which is something we all can be very proud of!"
Deel dit bericht:
2030
According to Abco Liek, Sagro’s idea to start with decommissioning already arose ten years ago however, it lasted until 2018 when the company seriously entered this market. “Around ten years ago we investigated the decom market,” he says. “However, in that period our existing business activities did not really gave us room and time to start. Despite this, we already applied for a permit for low level radio-active material, necessary to be able to take care of offshore constructions at our yard, and this also took some time.” Abco Liek continues, “Entering the decom market was quite exciting for us. First of all, there were already quite a few decom yards around the North Sea in the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, and the UK. Also, we had to take many steps in the field of the offshore safety rules and regulations that are much more stringent compared to our traditional onshore related decom projects. With our first successfully executed assignments we have been able to show what we are capable of, and now we have our order book for decommissioning filled and received many requests in 2023, 2024 and for next year. We are even involved in tender processes for projects up to 2030.”
Offshore wind
“When looking at our decom activities, I think that our strength lies in the fact that we are focusing on the mid-size constructions that are located in the southern part of the North Sea,” Abco Liek states. “We learned a lot from every new project and managed to create suitable procedures and processes for the receipt, cleaning, dismantling, recycling, and disposal of this smaller to mid-size offshore oil & gas structures. Now, with the offshore wind having reached its stage of maturity in the North Sea, this market too, is also becoming of interest when looking at decommissioning. With our expertise in smaller constructions, we see ample opportunities in this market, too.”
Always a surprise
Sagro has ample experience in the dismantling of civil and infrastructural constructions. However, according to Abco Liek, this does not mean that this experience could be copy-pasted to the offshore market. “Apart from the stricter rules,” he states, “there are more differences between the decommissioning of onshore and offshore constructions. “First of all, offshore means a lot of preparatory engineering,” Abco Liek elaborates.
“It takes a lot of calculations, cutting plans, etc. in the project preparation, for which we lacked expertise. This is why, for example, we recently hired a project engineer that is working only for our offshore decom projects. Also, as decommissioning of offshore structures takes place on our yard, we also need people that have a lot of experience in the safe moving around of large objects. Of course, our goal is to receive structures as clean as possible from the sea. However, it is always a surprise what exactly is the state of things. When we want to bid for the dismantling of, for example a building, we can simply drive to it and see by ourselves, what the state of this building is. Offshore this is hardly possible. Although we sometimes get the chance to look at an offshore structure at sea ourselves, for most offshore decommissioning projects we have to rely on pictures, movies and drawings.”
Growing share
Altogether, the share of offshore decommissioning is growing in Sagro’s activities. Looking at the current situation and future prospects, he expects business to continue in a positive way for Sagro. “Both in oil & gas and in the offshore wind,” he says, “there will be many opportunities for decommissioning in the upcoming years and this is why we expect to be able to handle around 20,000t of structures per year.” Space at Sagro’s yard is becoming an issue because of the growing number of projects. “It always is a challenge to deal with our space,” Abco Liek says. “Of course, in the ideal situation, a project is finished before the next one arrives, but this is not always the case. Luckily, we have been able to obtain a plot of terrain at the Westhofhaven close to our yard, which we can now use for the storage of dismantled
material. Also, in the context of sustainability and reuse, more and more of our customers make use of this location in case they want to keep some parts of the dismantled structures that are still fine to use. Currently, we are preparing this new terrain. For this we are moving halls from their current location to the new terrain. This way, we create additional space on our yard and quay for the handling of structures. To be able to make use of the new terrain we also have made good arrangements with our neighbour so, when necessary, we can make use of their quay to move things from our yard to our new facility.”
A different world
Abco Liek continues, “Because of safety reasons, we try to keep a team working on a decom project as small as possible with a total of eighteen people of which no more than three are torch burner operators. With the growing amount of projects, skilled people, especially cutting torch operators, are scarce. This means that we put a lot of effort in keeping these specialists and it is good to see that we have a relatively loyal team.” Abco Liek started his career at Sagro in 1991 and this way a has had many roles in the company. Also, he saw the company grow into what it is today. “Throughout the years I have been involved in many things at Sagro,” Abco Liek says. “I started in soil remediation and after that I had many roles and responsibilities at the company. What I like most are the challenging projects, and therefore I was very
pleased when Sagro gave me the chance to become part of decommissioning. Compared to the other sectors I have been involved in, the offshore decommissioning world is a totally different, international world, which was quite new to me.”
Proud
Abco Liek is very pleased with how things developed for Sagro in its decommissioning activities. “When looking at decommissioning we have had a very steep learning curve which is something we all can be very proud of. We have been able to execute various serious decom projects successfully with high safety standards which is recognised by our customers and results in excellent relationships with them. With a relatively small and dedicated team we have achieved a lot, and I look forward to continuing business with them and our clients in the same positive and successful way.”