June 20 - Heavy lift shipping line Dockwise - a subsidiary of marine contractor Boskalis - has successfully offloaded the 23,000 tonne Lucius spar in the Lucius deepwater oil and gas field, Gulf of Mexico.
The 184 m long, 34 m wide Lucius truss spar was loaded onboard Dockwise's Mighty Servant 1 by means of a skid operation in Pori, Finland. The spar was then transported 7,700 nautical miles and discharged at Ingleside, Texas.
The Lucius oil field development is located in Keathley Canyon Block 875 and is operated by Anadarko Petroleum Corporation.
Spars are usually offloaded over the stern of a semi-submersible vessel but due to space restrictions at Ingleside, Dockwise had to devise an innovative approach. The spar was discharged over the side of the Might Servant 1 using specially installed buoyancy tanks.
The length of the Lucius spar nearly exceeded the carrying capacity of the Mighty Servant 1 - extending 40 m over the stern of the vessel. With the commissioning of the 110,000-tonne capacity Dockwise Vanguard in February 2013, the company is well positioned to accommodate some of the world's largest structures in the future.
