Seafox, Ardent Decommission Dogger Bank Met Masts

Seafox and its main subcontractor Ardent have completed decommissioning of the two Forewind’s Dogger Bank meteorological masts.

The two suction bucket monopile foundation and lattice tower structures were installed four years ago to gather climate data to assess the feasibility of one of the UK’s largest potential offshore wind farm developments.

In light of minimising the environmental impact of the now decommissioned offshore structures, Forewind opted for the installation and removal operation due to the suction bucket concept.

In preparation of the removal operations, executed at the end of September 2017, Seafox and Ardent performed a pre-removal survey to reduce any uncertainties and to confirm the proposed removal procedure of the weather data measuring equipment, lattice towers, platforms and suction bucket monopiles.

All project engineering, fabrication and execution were carried out by Seafox and Ardent.  The offshore operations were executed more quickly than originally planned. The engineering, fabrication, testing and deploying together with SPT Offshore contributed to the successful removal.

Project preparation and assurance was carried out by the project team, including Seafox, Ardent, SSE, Global Maritime, Universal Foundations and Searoc, ensuring that the removal of
the structures were as successful as possible.

The meteorological masts are composed of an 80-meter lattice tower on a 16 m2 platform, which was mounted on a single pile, secured by a 15-meter diameter wide and 7-meter tall suction bucket.

Forewind is a joint venture of SSE, Statoil and previously Innogy and Statkraft.

Ollie Flattery, SSE project manager said, “The successful and safe removal of the structures is a great accolated for all parties involved in the project and a clear sign of the one team ethos,
professionalism and diligence of the entire project team.”