Oil and gas transport and heavy-lifting contractor ALE has announced that it has made significant progress in construction of one of the largest offshore projects in the UAE – the SARB4 in Abu Dhabi.
ALE is executing the weighing, land and marine transportation, lifting and installation as well as the engineering, ballasting and sea fastening for the offshore oilfield project, located about 140km northwest off Abu Dhabi.
ALE’s UAE branch was awarded an 18-month turnkey project, contracted to deliver numerous pipe rack, process modules and substations, weighing between 170 tonnes and 1,700 tonnes, from Mina Zayed Port and various fabrication yards via the Arabian Gulf, to the project site on Zirku Island.
During this project, ALE will be using a variety of different techniques, from weighing, land and marine transportation, to load-ins, load-outs and barge chartering and installations.
Furthermore, ALE will be utilising a variety of heavylift cranes and transport equipment including ALE barges, SPMTs and crawler cranes.
“This is one of the largest offshore projects that ALE Middle East has been involved in. As we approach the next stage, we are preparing to handle and load-out larger and more challenging modules, with some modules as heavy as 1,700 tonnes,” Shafic Tillawi, project manager for ALE, said according to a press release.
Satah al-Razboot (SARB) offshore oilfield is expected to add an additional 100,000 barrels per day of oil to the overall oil production capacity of UAE upon commissioning in late 2016.
The islands will serve as bases for drilling the oilfield and eliminate the use of offshore rigs. The project will involve drilling of 86 oil wells.
Oil drilled from the wells will be transferred via a subsea pipeline to a new facility to be built on Zirku Island for processing, storage and export. The processing facility at Zirku Island will have a capacity of 200,000 barrels of oil per day.
