Another record for ALE

International heavy lift and transport specialist ALE has claimed a world record with the load-out of the 47,830 tonne Arkutun Dagi topside. The UK-headquartered company said that it is the world’s heaviest load out. It was a combination of the 42,695 tonne topside on a 5,135 tonne support frame.

ALE’s scope of work included the pulling operation using strand jacks, a high capacity modular ballast system and precision 3D barge monitoring. In addition, ALE supplied the full engineering scope and supervision of the overall load out. The weight of the load meant that the working tolerances of the barge were much smaller than during a conventional load out, ALE said.

The topside is for the Arkutun Dagi field off the east coast of Russia. It is expected to be the largest oil and gas production platform in Russia and the first oil is scheduled to be produced in the next 12 months, ALE said.

See IC June 2013, page 25, for the full story on the world record jacking operation to raise this topside module using ALE’s Mega Jack system.