BRIDGING THE GAP By Natasha Kahn
One of CTC Marine Projects’ first steps in bridging the gap from the telecoms industry to the oil and gas industry presented itself through the opportunity to complete The Sleipner to Grane Fibre Optic Cable Network Project for Norddeutsche Seekabelwerke GmbH (NSW). With the end client Norsk Hydro, the project comprised a single, 24 fibre, fibre optic cable linking the Sleipner A (15/ 9) platform and the Grane (25/11) platform on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. The notice-period given to CTC of one week before mobilisation represented the shortest in CTC’s previous experience, yet mobilisation commenced on schedule on 22nd July 2003. The project comprised two segments; FOC2/ Jumper to Sleipner Target Box (0.682km in length) and Sleipner Target Box to Grane (100.258km in length) crossing one active pipeline and three in-service fibre-optic communications cables along the Sleipner Target Box to Grane segment of the Sleipner to Grane Fibreoptic cable route project. Water depths along the route ranged from 84m at the Sleipner platform to 128m at the Grane platform. CTC Marine projects were contracted by NSW to perform simultaneous lay and burial of approximately 103km of cable to a target depth of 1m between the Sleipner and Grane platforms. The installation activities that CTC Marine Projects undertook, used its M/V Skandi Neptune, as Norsk Hydro required a DP2 class 32