Dubai's ship building unit Drydocks World has announced the successful completion of the floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) for Italy's OLT Offshore LNG Toscana.

OLT Offshore LNG Toscana, a joint venture between E.ON Group (46.79 per cent), Iren Group (46.79 per cent), Golar Offshore Toscana Limited (3.73 per cent) and OLT Energy Toscana SpA (2.69 per cent), was created to implement the regasification terminal project which envisages a floating unit positioned 22 km off the Tuscan coast.

The FSRU is intended for a 20-year design life 12 nautical miles off the shores of north-west Italy, in the waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea close to Livorno, said a statement from Drydocks World.

The gas will be transferred onshore through a 36.5 km long pipeline operated and managed by Snam Rete Gas, of which 29.5 km are at sea and 7 km on dry land.

The LNG carrier Golar Frost, a 2004 Korean built 288.6m x 48 m vessel with a design draught of 11m and lightweight of 34,000 tonnes and storage capacity of 135,000 cu. m of LNG, came to Dubai in June 2009 for conversion through contractor Saipem and client OLT Offshore LNG Toscana.

This was one of the most sophisticated conversion projects carried out by the shipyard, said a senior official.

"This is indeed a tremendous achievement and a testimonial to our technical and project management capabilities that enable us to take on projects of a high level of sophistication and advancement," remarked Khamis Juma Buamim, the chairman of Drydocks World and Maritime World.

"We are indeed keen to take on increasingly challenging projects for the offshore deep sea exploration and production sector as we have proven time and again that we have the capacity and capability to implement projects for leaders in the offshore industry in a timely manner, while maintaining high standards in safety and quality," he added.

The scope of work for the shipyard included:
•Detailed Engineering: – major achievements include complete turret construction methodology brainstormed and worked out by the Yard’s engineers such that there were no damages to the Inconel cladding of the turret bearings. In addition the nearly 2000 tonnes Re-gasification module T-16 was an engineering challenge to lift and install onboard.
• Procurement: – with restrictions to sourcing the material required for the various grades of piping, mainly Cunifer and Cryo and the stringent MED and 3.2 certification requirements Procurement was never something less than an ongoing challenge.
•Construction: - the Project can well boast of carrying out routine complex works as part of the scope related to Topsides such as the fabrication and installation of the 600 tonnes, 25 m high external turret and turret mooring system, installation of the prototype four loading arms 75 MT each, lifting, installation and tie-ins for the 2100 MT re-gasification T-16 and the 400 MT T-20 wobbe index modules.

•Pre- Commissioning and Assistance to Final Commissioning: - The newly-installed HVAC system's final commissioning was completed by the yard and their sub-contractors. In addition the yard has provided support to the client for other commissioning works such as cool down of cryogenic piping, Boiler flash up, performance trial run of power generators, harbor acceptance test of aft thruster and leak test of the natural gas piping.

The best part was that all of the above was completed consuming 9.57 million man hours with only three LTIs instead of the expected 9.59 million man hours, said Khamis.
 
The shipyard is involved till the vessel is ready for transportation to site and is presently expected to sail from the shipyard in the second quarter of 2013, he added.-TradeArabia News Service