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by the ROV,” Rosén says. Team working was a critical part of the looking at operational constraints and pro-

EPIC

A ? xation template was designed and project, Rosén says. “Managing such a curement and manufacturing. The ? xation fabricated with uniform docking inter- big project in such a short period of time template and clamp started fabrication in faces, to allow the ROV to position itself requires team work,” he says. “Everyone,

June with ancillary tool development and and then drill and place each plug cor- all the companies involved, in different tested in July, before early August factory rectly. A drilling tool was then developed, locations and from different cultures, acceptance testing and offshore mobiliza- to drill through the steel and concrete working together towards a common goal, tion mid-August. sections of the sleeve, grout and then pile, The offshore campaign started in with an ethos where you share problems, including dealing with weld beads, and August and lasted around ? ve weeks to solve them. Talisman had a very proac- removing swarf from the bit. A 300mm- in total. First, the ? xation template was tive approach in this respect. You also diameter hole saw was developed, with installed and initial drilling carried out, need people who are prepared to take on special pro? le cutting teeth to handle the through the sleeve. Then clamp was a challenge and put other things aside, sleeve, pile and grout. Before deployment, lowered into place and closed to pull up because it’s not all straight forward.” it was tested off the quayside, using a the sleeve. The holes were pre-drilled Engineering consultancy Atkins work class ROV, which helped re? ne the through the sleeve to reduce the opera- provided veri? cation services and tool and make any improvements where tional time it would take to drill through DeepOcean was the subsea contractor. necessary. Despite initially not seeming a the piles. The sleeve was then jacked up, The clamp and auxiliary tooling is now critical part of the project, the drill tool, and the holes drilled through the pile, in storage and Varg A is safe and stable.

The partners on Varg are Talisman and ancillary equipment, was key, Rosén ready for the plugs to be inserted.

Energy Norge AS, with 65%, Petoro (30%), says. “When we started, we thought the “A lot of engineering, testing and plan- and Det norske oljeselskap (5%). clamp would be the most critical element, ning went in to preparing as much as we but the drill alone could have been a nine could before we went offshore to reduce

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month project,” he says. the amount of time it would take to insert

What are the upstream oil and gas the plugs—as the more plugs inserted industry’s biggest projects (cost,

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