FPSO begins contentious Danish demolition

CONTROVERSIAL floating production, storage and offtake vessel Northern Endeavour arrived in Denmark via heavylift vessel at the end of March and is now under demolition in Frederikshavn.

The Department of Industry, Science and Resources finally confirmed the completion of the voyage late last week, having remained coy about the transit under tow from the Timor Sea last October to Singapore, where it was prepared for carriage on COSCO Shipping Heavy Transport’s semi-submersible heavy transport vessel, Hua Rui Long.

Social media sources posted vision of the FPSO passing through the Suez Canal and the subsequent arrival at Modern American Recycling Services (MARS) Europe’s specialist offshore ship/rig recycling facility in Frederikshavn.

DISR said the vessels left Singapore in February and on the 8-week voyage, with preparations for the trip to MARS overseen by Petrofac Facilities Management Limited at the Seatrium yards. Works included:

• Cleaning the hull and removing antifouling paint.
• Repainting the hull to prevent any further degradation.
• Rmoving protrusions from the bottom of the hull that would have prevented the FPSO from loading onto the heavy transport vessel.
• Removing the flare and weather towers to allow safe passage under bridges through the Suez Canal.
• Installing fasteners to safely secure the FPSO to the heavy transport vessel..

“Loading the FPSO onto Hua Rui Long required a coordinated effort. This involved 8 tugs and 2 line-handling vessels. The entire process to load the FPSO took 6.5 hours,” DISR said, noting Hua Rui Long is one of only a few vessels worldwide able to transport something as big as the 274-metre FPSO. It’s the third largest semi-submersible heavy transport vessel currently operating.

“We will now work closely with MARS to safely and efficiently recycle the FPSO.

“The focus of the Northern Endeavour decommissioning program has now shifted to phase 2 to permanently plug and abandon the oil wells. The tender process for a supplier to deliver this work closed in December and evaluations are underway,” DISR said.

Northern Endeavour began operations in the Laminaria-Corallina oilfields in 1999 for Woodside and partners. In July 2015 it was sold to Northern Oil & Gas Australia, which later was forced to shut down over safety issues and subsequently went into liquidation, in September 2019.

All crew were removed in February 2020 and the Federal Government was obliged to take control of the abandoned unit and arrange its decommissioning and removal, at an expect eventual cost to taxpayers of over $1 billion.

The government’s decision to have the FPSO dismantled by a specialist facility on the other side of the world was contested by unions and sections of industry keen to see earlier pledges to support the establishment of a local dismantling/recycling capacity, met.

Northern Endeavour’s departure also meant the Federal Government had granted an export licence, another point of contention amid claims this contravened international convention obligations.