Subsea 7 opens North Sea spoolbase

Subsea 7 has opened a North Sea spoolbase at Vigra in Norway.

The base was officially opened by Kristian Siem, Chairman of Subsea 7; Knut Støbakk, the Mayor of Giske Community; Morten Ruud, Executive Vice President of StatoilHydro and Mel Fitzgerald, Chief Executive Officer of Subsea 7. The US$30 million investment is key to developing Subsea 7's already strong pipelay capability in the North Sea market. Furthermore, it provides a strategic platform for new geographic markets such as the Barents Sea as that region opens up. The spoolbase is located beside the airport on the island of Vigra on the North West coast of Norway, close to the city of Aalesund. The base runs 3.7 kilometres across the island and includes a purpose-built deepwater quay area, covering a total area of 284, 505 square metres. This makes it one of the longest spoolbase facilities of its type in the world. The base will employ up to 75 people when working at normal capacity, rising to 120 in peak periods. The spooling line length (from seaward end of stalk racks to quay) is 2037 metres. The quay is an L-shaped design, enabling the pipelay vessels to moor alongside the 110-metre-long quay for the pipeline spooling onto the vessel. The first project to be undertaken by the base is the fabrication of a 60-kilometre 30.5 centimetre gas pipeline for StatoilHydro.

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