Neptune kicks off first W2W campaign at North Sea field

Oil and gas company Neptune Energy has started the first Walk to Work (W2W) campaign at its operated Cygnus gas field in the UK Southern North Sea.

A programme of brownfield modifications, maintenance and inspection activities will be supported by Bibby Marine’s WaveMaster 1 vessel, reducing time, costs and environmental impacts, Neptune said on Thursday.

The vessel is equipped with a ‘motion-compensated transfer gangway’, enabling crews to walk between the vessel and the Cygnus Bravo platform. It is an efficient and less carbon-intensive means of accommodating the 50 personnel carrying out the work, in comparison with carrying out multiple helicopter flights to and from shore, Neptune explained.

The W2W campaign at Cygnus Bravo, which is usually unmanned, will also increase productive time allowing for additional operations to be undertaken that would have otherwise been scheduled separately.

Neptune Energy’s Managing Director for the UK, Alexandra Thomas, said: “Partnering with Bibby Marine on our first W2W campaign, we believe this approach could be very effective for the Cygnus field and provide significant efficiency and environmental benefits. This will enable us to consider alternative execution strategies for extended shutdowns, intensive fabric maintenance or inspection programmes in the future”.

Bibby Marine’s Commercial and Client Manager, Mark Whitehead, said: “Bibby WaveMaster 1 and her crew have extensive experience on campaigns like this, and the vessel itself is very capable of working in this sector of the North Sea across all seasons having completed over 10,000 gangway connections and transferred over 60,000 people”.

Earlier this year, Neptune and Spirit Energy agreed to partner on the development of the Pegasus West gas discovery in the UK Southern North Sea. Under the agreement, the Cygnus platform will become the host platform for the Pegasus development.