Partners complete mooring installation

It is the first installation by the firms in the region, following other mooring scopes in the Mediterranean and offshore  Brazil.

A new Floating Production Unit was installed using MDL’s mooring spread mobilised on board Jumbo Maritime’s Heavy Load Carrier, the Fairplayer.

MDL’s spread consisted of a reel drive system and level winder for accurate transpooling of the mooring line ropes, which were carried on 24 transport reels on a purpose-built heavy-duty deployment reel. A Generation 2 Reel Drive System was also used for overside installation.

”The specialist 8.6m OD installation reel was designed by MDL’s in-house engineering team and features a spoked section to separate the polyester rope and mooring chain,” says MDL. ”The reel had a dual function on the project: allowing the transpooling of the product from the storage reels under back tension, and for deployment of the lines overboard. MDL Generation 2 RDS’ 150Tem of torque enables handling of loads of up to 75Te, revving in both directions.”

“From the onset MDL and Jumbo collaborated as one team to support each client and mooring project at every stage,” said MDL Project Engineer Paul Marshall. ”Considering the number of reels to be deployed, the combination of a large back deck and our compact but highly capable equipment resulted in a fit-for-purpose solution that was much more efficient than using traditional approaches, such as deploying an anchor handler.”