James Fisher ticks Ithaca Energy project off to-do list

James Fisher Subtech (JF Subtech) has completed a subsea inspection, repair and maintenance (IRM) project for Ithaca Energy on its FPF-1 floating production facility located offshore Aberdeen in Scotland.

During the 21-day project, JF Subtech carried out the installation and removal of cofferdams to facilitate internal valve maintenance, rectification on riser guides and completed inspection work on over 160 areas of the FPF-1 hulls and sub-structure, using a mix of air diving and ROV techniques.

According to the company, the work was partially conducted during the FPF-1 shutdown period and saw incident-free operations with a 99% equipment operational uptime rate.

The team on board the DP2 construction vessel Olympic Challenger, equipped with a JF Subtech Air Dive Spread and Cougar Light work class ROV system, executed 80 air dives and 126 hours of ROV operations, the company added.

“The scope of work that Ithaca Energy brought to us was a challenging one, but thanks to our experience in supporting operators in extreme environments, we were able to execute the work safely and to the tight deadlines required,” John Ewen, assets and operations director at JF Subtech.

The project is JF Subtech’s first following a rebrand in March, through which James Fisher and Sons consolidated its core competencies to provide offshore operators with expertise for the extremes.

The FPF-1 is located in Block 30/6a approximately 240 kilometres east of Aberdeen and serves the Ithaca-operated Greater Stella Area production hub.

The Greater Stella Area licences contain the Stella and Harrier fields, both of which are in production, and the Vorlich field, which started production in November 2020.

Production started from the Stella field in early 2017 and from Harrier in 2018.