FG International Holland BV, the Dutch Special Lifting company, has recently applied a brand new construction called FG Single Pole Lifter.
Willtéco was awarded the high profile job to construct and exchange gearboxes on a jack-up platform in IJmuiden, The Netherlands. While the jack-up does have 2 sizeable deck cranes, both cranes cannot fully reach the enclosed area where the gearboxes are located.
As an alternative to putting a huge land based crane on the quayside, FG built, supplied and operated a flexible temporary (yellow) lifting construction called SPL50, designed around the specifics of the accessibility problem and the strong points of the platform.
In a combined effort of the jack-up owner, Willtéco and FG the initially planned 5 weeks job was actually completed within less than 3 weeks from the start; safe, smooth and fast.
The FG SPL50 can be applied on every type of jack-up or other construction where a limited footprint and/or insufficient existing crane capacity needs to be remedied.
Several jack-up drilling companies and classification societies have already shown a keen interest in the system as the aging worldwide jack-up fleet recognizes the good condition of the gearboxes in the jacking systems as a crucial factor in the overall personnel and rig safety offshore.
[mappress] Source:FG, June 12, 2011;