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Capitalising on new opportunities in renewable energy www.foundocean.com
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Offshore Change The world’s largest subsea grouting company has diversified into structural grouting for offshore renewables in recognition of the changing nature of the UK’s energy demands Writer: Emily Jarvis • Project Manager: Eddie Clinton
ince experiencing considerable growth in 2010 due to its entry into the renewable energy market and expansion into emerging oil & gas regions, FoundOcean has been at the forefront of industry change and development. Boasting more than 50 years of experience in subsea grouting for the oil & gas and offshore wind sectors, FoundOcean is proud to hold high status as the world’s largest dedicated offshore construction grouting company. Now working on some of the world’s most renowned offshore rigs, the Company is proud to have sustained a comprehensive health and safety management policy that has significantly aided with Zero Harm goals.
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“Our primary area of expertise lies in securing structures to the seabed by foundation grouting, whether a single oil & gas platform or multiple installations for offshore wind turbines, and we also support the industry through consulting on many foundation designs for tidal, wave and offshore wind projects,” explained FoundOcean. Furthermore, as part of the wider FoundOcean Group – a specialist in vibro-hammers, power units and auxiliary products – FoundOcean is able to leverage on the Group’s Dutch skill base, internal trainings and research facilities in order to continuously improve its operations. In line with this, the Company has allocated an Innovation Director who has the sole responsibility of overseeing the ongoing development of FoundOcean’s equipment.
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The Company confirmed: “Martin Hardy, Innovations Director, has been behind many of the key technological breakthroughs the company has made in the past 20 years, in addition to providing advice to clients who are facing technical challenges. “Hardy is accompanied by an experienced management team whose knowledge of the offshore and subsea market can be traced back to the 1960s, and many of our company directors have been with us since the beginning, when the Company was known as Wimpey Laboratories.”
Five decades later
Established in 1966 and later becoming Wimpey Geotech, Wimpey Laboratories was the first company in the world to develop the process of offshore grouting; a process which
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North Rankin B: FoundOcean’s biggest pile grouting project by cement volume to date at 150m tall, with four 22m2 mudmats, standing in 125 metres of water
is now adopted worldwide on a vast number of subsea installations. Operating under the Wimpey banner for three decades, in 1993, the offshore division of Wimpey Geotech was acquired by SeaMark Systems, which was swiftly followed by the sale of the namesake Sea Marker product in order to focus solely on offshore grouting. The resulting Company became known as FoundOcean.
CASE Study North Rankin B
Grouting the 16-sleeve-jacket for one of the world’s largest topsides
North Rankin B
Grouting the 16-sleeve-jacket for one of the world’s largest topsides The North Rankin B foundation houses one of the world’s largest topsides and is immense compared to a regular jacket. It is 150m tall, has four 22m2 mudmats, and stands in 125m of water. Because the grout volume was so large, FoundOcean used two of their unique Recirculating Jet Mixers (RJM) in unison to mix the material, and pump the grout down a single hose. The seabed in Western Australia is particularly complex, with the structure requiring 16 foundation piles to secure it to the seabed. Each 182m-long pile was placed in two sections. The upper part of the hollow pile was driven as normal into the seabed. The ground below the pile was then drilled out to form a socket to enable the lower section of the pile to be inserted through the upper part. To grout the lower part of the pile, a Stinger was inserted to the bottom of the socket where ducts in the lower section carried grout out to the rock surrounding the pile. The Stinger was raised as the column of grout filled the annuli inside and outside of the lower pile. The sleeve-to-pile connection was then grouted using standard procedures via primary and secondary grout lines. The lower end of each primary pile sleeve was equipped with a grout packer system to retain the grout in the annulus whilst it was curing.
PROJECT FACTS Industry Region Services Project year Operator Contractor Water depth Cement type
Oil & Gas Western Australia Pile grouting 2012 Woodside Energy Heerema Marine Contractors 125 m Semen Padang ASTM type 1 AS 3972 General Purpose Total cement 4,456 tonnes Mixer type Recirculating Jet Mixer Grout specification 45 MPa Mixing rate 30m3/hr (2 No. RJMs)
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This was FoundOcean’s biggest pile grouting project by cement volume to date.
Pioneering innovations from the leading global energy-focused offshore grouting contractor
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Liston Exchange, Liston Court, Marlow, SL7 1ER, UK • +44 1628 567 000 info@foundocean.com • www.foundocean.com
Half a century later and Wimpey’s grouting services went on to become award-winning industry practice, accompanied by a whole host of value-add solutions; diversifying into offshore renewables, life extension solutions for offshore assets including freespan correction, pipeline rehabilitation and jacket strengthening, maintenance and repair. FoundOcean solutions therefore have the capability to prolong the life of offshore energy production, which is a very welcome service for those with operations in the industry. “Our 49 years of grouting experience has been perfected by successfully completing more than 1,000 offshore projects in the oil & gas and offshore renewable industries including the award-winning Ormonde Offshore Wind Farm, contributing to our title as experts in subsea grouting,” the Company further added.
perspective and environmental considerations into new product design is a goal and a high priority. the target is to implement environmental O I L & G management systems in all operations. all product companies and major customer centres must be certified according to the international standard on environment, the ISo:14001.
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Incident-free strategy
Committed to maintaining a conscious culture towards health, safety and the environment, FoundOcean applies its years of in-depth knowledge of the industry to prevent unnecessary harm to employees to protect them from the harsh working conditions. “As a DNV-accredited to ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 quality standards since 2006, we work to continually identify and eliminate any foreseeable hazards and minimise the probability of incidents resulting in personal injuries, illnesses, damage to property and the environment,” said the Company. With an annual review of its policies, FoundOcean is able to monitor the effectiveness of its current health and safety practices and ensure the process of continuous improvement is maintained. The Company added: “Our incident and injury-free strategy is built around a multi-layered learning and
Award-winning structural grouting services for offshore wind farms and oil & gas platforms
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James Bell, Managing Director Bell started his engineering career when he joined the Wimpey Construction Group in 1989. He worked across various heavy civil construction projects before moving to Wimpey’s offshore construction division. Following this, Bell spent several years working in engineering and oil & gas roles. In 2005, he made the move to FoundOcean as Managing Director where he has implemented major strategic changes resulting in a significant expansion of the business. These changes include international expansion, research and investment in a new plant and overseeing a 500 percent increase in employee numbers, leading to a 10-fold increase in revenues. Bell has been involved with numerous technically challenging projects including the Woodside North Rankin B jacket installation, Thornton Bank Wind Farm, BP CATS pipeline repair, ConocoPhillips Ekofisk strengthening, Exxon Diana Truss Spar riser system and Umm Shaif Gas Development project.
development programme, embedded employee wellbeing culture, and focus to build a sustainable business for the future. As the industry is subject to undergo change due to a number of variables in the future, it is important that we keep our policies as up to date as possible.” Moreover, all FoundOcean personnel working offshore have to undertake an offshore survival course and subsequent refresher courses at an approved offshore petroleum industry training board centre; where staff knowledge of Company procedures can be put to the test.
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Offshore wind
As the industry is subject to undergo change due to a number of variables in the future, it is important that we keep our policies as up to date as possible
After applying its wealth of subsea grouting knowledge to the offshore wind sector in 2010, FoundOcean’s first renewable project – the Ormonde Offshore Wind Farm - became the recipient of a national ‘Large Project’ award at the inaugural Energy Awards provided by RenewableUK. “We quickly proved our versatility and competence with a range of offshore wind foundation types including monopole transition pieces at the 576MW Gwynt y Môr, jacket-style foundations at the 30MW Thornton Bank, and tripod foundations at the 400MW Tiranel Wind Farm Borkum phase two,” highlighted the Company. Ormonde Offshore Wind Farm is just one example of industrial excellence, displaying the huge amount of structural design work that goes into offshore renewable energy projects. Located 10 kilometres (km) off BarrowIn-Furness in the Irish Sea and covering an area of 8.7km2, Ormonde comprises
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CASE Study Ormonde Offshore Wind Farm Pile grouting for 31 four-legged jacket foundations in the Irish Sea, 10km off Barrow-In-Furness.
Ormonde Offshore Wind Farm Pile grouting for 31 four-legged jacket foundations in the Irish Sea, 10km off Barrow-In-Furness.
Subsea and offshore grouting for the global energy construction industries
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30 RePower 5MW wind turbines producing a capacity of 150MW and one substation; this is enough energy to supply the equivalent of approximately 100,000 homes a year with clean power. FoundOcean explained the structural building process: “The 31, four-legged OWEC Quattropod foundations were secured to the seabed by four main legs which were inserted into pre-driven piles. The connection between the leg and the pre-driven piles was made by injecting FoundOcean cement grout into the annulus around each pile and stab-in-leg.” Conclusively, Ormonde served as a great marker that highlights the potential for large scale offshore wind projects around the world. For FoundOcean, this was the first multiple-jacket grouting project that demonstrated the flexible, scalable nature of the Company’s operations and its ability to diversify in the face of changing energy requirements.
FoundOcean completes grouting operations for the Ormonde Offshore Wind Farm,the first large-scale commercial wind farm in European waters to use jacket foundations
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FOUNDOCEAN LIMITED Liston Exchange, Liston Court, High Street Marlow, Buckinghamshire, SL7 1ER Tel: 01628 567 000
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