Oil and gas company Shell has selected the Netherlands-based rope manufacturer Lankhorst Ropes to supply the mooring lines for the Appomattox development in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.
Some 140 nautical miles south-east of New Orleans, the semi-submersible four-column production platform will be moored in approximately 7,200 feet (2,195 metres) of water using 16 mooring lines arranged in 4×4 clusters. Lankhorst Ropes is supplying 78 rope lengths totalling over 63,000 metres of Lankhorst’s polyester deepwater mooring rope which, as the company says, has a minimum breaking strength of 21,545 kN.
The Gama 98, as the ropes are named, will be manufactured at Lankhorst’s factory in Viana do Castelo, Portugal.
Neil Schulz , sales director of Lankhorst Ropes Offshore, said: “This is a landmark project for Lankhorst Ropes. Our continued investment in our state-of-the-art deepwater rope manufacturing facilities now allow gross reel weights up to 250 tonnes. This enables us to supply two ropes per reel for this project, giving a gross reel weight of 130t.”
Shell made the final investment decision to advance the Appomattox deep-water development in the Gulf of Mexico on July 1, 2015.
This decision authorised the construction and installation of Shell’s eighth and largest floating platform in the Gulf of Mexico. The Appomattox development is intended to produce from the Appomattox and Vicksburg fields, with average peak production estimated to reach approximately 175,000 barrels of oil equivalent (boe) per day.
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