Neptune Energy has announced the start of the first Walk to Work (W2W) campaign at the Cygnus gas field in the UK Southern North Sea. A programme of brownfield modifications, maintenance and inspection activities will be supported by Bibby Marine’s WaveMaster 1 vessel, reducing time, costs and environmental impacts.
The vessel is equipped with a ‘motion-compensated transfer gangway’, enabling crews to safely walk between the vessel and the Cygnus Bravo platform.
It is an efficient and less carbon-intensive means of accommodating the 50 personnel carrying out the work, in comparison with multiple helicopter flights to and from shore.
The W2W campaign at Cygnus Bravo, which is usually unmanned, will also increase productive time allowing for additional operations to be undertaken that would have otherwise been scheduled separately.
Neptune Energy’s Managing Director for the UK, Alexandra Thomas, said: “Partnering with Bibby Marine on our first W2W campaign, we believe this approach could be very effective for the Cygnus field and provide significant efficiency and environmental benefits. This will enable us to consider alternative execution strategies for extended shutdowns, intensive fabric maintenance or inspection programs in the future.”
Bibby Marine’s Commercial and Client Manager, Mark Whitehead, said: “We have been assisting Neptune Energy with their planning for this project for a number of months and are pleased we have now arrived at the platform and the project has commenced.”
“Bibby WaveMaster 1 and her crew have extensive experience on campaigns like this, and the vessel itself is very capable of working in this sector of the North Sea across all seasons having completed over 10,000 gangway connections and transferred over 60,000 people.”
The Cygnus field is capable of supplying 6 per cent of the UK’s gas demand, enough to fuel 1.5 million UK homes. The Cygnus partners are: Neptune Energy (operator and 38.75 per cent) and Spirit Energy (61.25 per cent).
