Support for Saipem’s West African flex-lay campaigns comes from UK firm

Aberdeen-headquartered Maritime Developments Limited (MDL) has supported Italian engineering, drilling, and construction services company Saipem during flex-lay campaigns in West Africa.

Under its contract, MDL was in charge of providing specialist equipment and operational support to enable Saipem’s vessels for two recent flex-lay campaigns offshore Ivory Coast, Senegal and Mauritania.

The first project in the Baleine field, said to be Ivory Coast’s largest discovery to date, saw a complete MDL spread consisting of a generation 3 reel dive system and a horizontal lay system enabled with a 60-ton four-track tensioner deployed to lay 16 flexible jumpers in 1,400 meters of water depth.

Baleine is Eni’s first development in the Ivory Coast and the company describes it as the first net-zero development in Africa and the largest hydrocarbon discovery made by an energy company in the country. The giant field was discovered in 2021, with production from floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) unit Baleine kicking off two years later.

Baleine Phase 2 was launched on December 28, 2024, one year after the start-up of the first stage. The second phase enabled production to reach 60,000 barrels of oil per day and 70 million cubic feet of associated gas, which is equivalent to 2 million cubic meters (cbm).

MDL further assisted Saipem at the Greater Tortue Ahmeyim (GTA) LNG project, developed by the Kosmos Energy-BP partnership, integrating MDL Generation 1 RDS with a set of linear cable engines to install a 33mm OD fibre optic cable.

The project is located on the maritime border of Mauritania and Senegal, with wells located in water depths of up to 2,850 meters, making it one of the deepest subsea developments in Africa.

“Delivering safe and efficient solutions is always our top priority at MDL. Supporting Saipem on these diverse projects in West Africa has been a testament to our team’s ability to integrate with our client’s operations – providing tailored equipment packages that ensure reliable performance, including in deep waters,” said Euan Crichton, Senior Project Manager at MDL.

“Our expertise in flex-lay operations, coupled with our versatile equipment and engineering know-how, allows us to adapt to the unique challenges of each project. This flexibility is particularly valuable on projects where access to specialist vessels is limited, enabling our clients to execute complex scopes with confidence, using assets that they have direct access to.”