Aquatic, an Acteon company, a leading independent operator of powered reel and tensioner systems for the global Oil & Gas industry, has developed a new 500-tonne powered reel drive system to meet market demand.
Designed, developed and built at Aquatic’s Peterhead facility, the AQPR-02G-500 Powered Reel Drive was specifically introduced to support customer projects.
“For this challenging project Aquatic have demonstrated that they can fully support their customers through the application of expertise to solve specific project needs", said Chris Bonetti, Lead Engineer for Technip Norge AS. "We required a solution that went beyond the existing industry benchmark and Aquatic were able to provide a comprehensive service, enabling us to install our flexible products in more challenging subsea environments.”
The 500Te reel drive system is based on existing, well proven, 400Te drive units but has had substantial structural upgrades to handle the extra capacity. As with the bulk of Aquatic’s fleet, this powered reel system has been designed to be fully road transportable or capable of being shipped in a series of open topped containers, enabling greater efficiency, both in terms of cost and time, in mobilisation and demobilisation for customers wherever in the world they are operating.
The project highlighted how the entire team at Aquatic can provide a fully engineered solution for the customer; the Design Engineering team worked closely with the Projects and Operations teams, from the design stage right through to the manufacture and testing of the equipment to ensure that operational and technical elements were optimised, for example the size of the central axles of the machine had to be increased and specialist steels were brought in to ensure the right factors of safety were obtained. Apart from development of the 500Te reel drive itself this particular job also provided other challenges for the engineering team to overcome, not least the fact that the reel being fitted to the system was 12.3m in diameter.
Aquatic not only provides both the equipment and people to perform pipe lay operations, its team of engineers can provide technical solutions for each different installation operation as well as the capability to design specific equipment for installation projects such as installation reels, tensioners and powered sheaves. This engineering function is an integral part of Aquatic’s plan for expansion and development providing it with the ability to support diversification into green energy markets as well as to react quickly to long-established customers’ requirements.
This latest tower drive system is compatible with a wide range of Aquatic’s current list of equipment such as the existing powered reel track systems, AQPRTS-01 and AQPRTS-03. A level winder, stern chutes and a selection of storage reels to suit the AQPR-02G-500 are also available for hire, providing all the equipment required for a typical installation spread.
Chris Brooks, President of Aquatic “We continually invest in new equipment and technology to fulfil market demand, and in addition to this powered reel drive we have embarked upon building a four track 50Te tensioner. Urged by customers that whilst Aquatic’s fleet of four track 40Te Tensioners have established a strong market presence, greater capacity was required to meet deeper water and larger product requirements. As a result our latest addition the AQTT-10C-50 50Te unit will be ready for service mid-way through the third quarter 2010.” This unit, coupled with the new AQPR02G-500, takes Aquatics capabilities further and deeper.