Foundation design for the refloat of the Maureen steel gravity platform

Abstract

The Maureen Oil Field, located in the UK sector of the North Sea, was developed in the early 1980s, with the installation of the world's largest steel gravity platform, together with the installation of an export pipeline to an offshore concrete articulated loading column. Production in the field ceased in October 1999, and the facilities at the Maureen location were removed in the summer of 2001 as part of the decommissioning process. The largest element for removal and decommissioning was the steel gravity platform of about 1100 MN (110 000 t). This paper describes all the geotechnical engineering works, associated with the hydraulic skirt extraction/jacking of the gravity platform from the seabed, which were executed prior to the refloat and tow of the platform to deep water inshore moorings, together with a summary of results from the actual skirt extraction/jacking process, which was executed in June 2001.