Gudrun Project, Norway

Description

Gudrun oil and gas field lies in production licence 025 of the North Sea at a water depth of 361ft. The field is estimated to contain 70 million barrels of oil and 1.7 trillion cubic feet of gas. Discovered in 1974, Gudrun has had to wait for 40 years before being converted from find to producing field due to the complexity of its high temperature and pressure reservoir. StatoilHydro is the operator of the field and it will develop Gudrun using a fixed processing platform supported by a 7,400t steel jacket. We were awarded the project to build the helideck and support structure in aluminium alloy

Helideck + Support structure

Gudrun is a Norwegian project with a fully Norsok compliant helideck. The large 26.1m lightweight XD standard aluminium helideck is designed to cater for Sikorsky S92 operations, and incorporates a 3.9m high all-aluminium support truss together with a full perimeter walkway. The attached photos show an almost entirely cantilevered helideck sitting on the 2000m2 aluminium living quarters supplied by the LQ specialist builders, Apply Leirvik in Norway. One of the most interesting features of this project is the use of aluminium for the support arrangement, to such an extent that every member is in aluminium alloy, with the sole exception of the two lower struts seen in the photographs. The helideck was lifted into place in July 2012.