Castorone

The 'Castorone' lost control of the pipeline it was installing off the Pilbara coast, forcing an evacuation of workers and damaging the pipeline in the night of Jan 29, 2024. Offshore workers on the vessel have been told there will be no work for almost a month while the gaping hole was being repaired. Soon after the incident, which damaged part of the already installed Scarborough pipeline, some 200 construction workers were demobilised from the vessel and told they would not be needed. The next rotation of offshore workers who would have replaced them has also been also impacted. Saipem's initial assessment of the incident suggested that a software anomaly caused the incident that buckled the pipe during installation, damaging part of the already installed trunkline. The pipelay vessel did not sustain any damages. A tensioner, a giant clamp that supports up to 250 tonnes of the pipeline suspended between the vessel and the seabed, had failed An underwater camera was sent down to the seabed and confirmed the pipeline was ruptured, allowing seawater to flow in.

The operations to install Norway’s largest pipeline to the Johan Sverdrup field started outside Mongstad, north of Bergen, late last week onboard the vessel Saipem Castorone. Soon the tip of the first pipe of what will become Norway’s longest and largest oil pipeline will be pulled into the Mongstad terminal, north of Bergen. The 36” pipeline which will extend more than 280 km out to the Johan Sverdrup field once installed, is being pulled through a pre-drilled hole at the bottom of the Fensfjord into the oil terminal. When the Johan Sverdrup field produces at peak up to 660,000 barrels of oil will flow daily into Mongstad.stat

Statoil has awarded around NOK 2.5 billion (US$288 million) worth of contracts for its Johan Sverdrup offshore oil and gas field. Saipem has been awarded the contract for the pipeline installation, and will utilise their giant Castorone pipelay vessel for the operation. The Castorone was recently used to complete the record breaking Ichthys subsea pipeline offshore Australia, for INPEX. The 42 inch subsea line covered a distance of 553 miles (890 km).