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Thread: The offshore oil and gas industry.

  1. #11
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    Default Re: The offshore oil and gas industry.

    The SBM or single buoy mooring , there were some still around before I left the North Sea , but some may as now have pipe lines ashore . An SBM was a large floating buoy which had pipe line connection to whatever oill field it belonged to, with fueling or loading hose and mooring line attached floating in the water with a messenger and fisherman’s buoys to be able to recover and pass to the tanker which loaded from. A ship had to be designated for this job and also to check out buoy during and after bad weather to make sure they were available for the next tanker coming to use. Brian Kong will know all about them as used frequently on his sojourns into the North Sea.I spent 4 weeks one winter looking after one, the weather was so bad we lost the quick release man overboard buoys from the bridge wings , one of them finished up in Norway and there were frantic calls going out to us to make sure we hadn’t followed the lifebuoy.just one of the many side jobs of the offshore oil industry. The easiest way to transfer to tanker weather permitting was to stretch the mooring line at 90 degrees across the tankers approach and he grappled it, otherwise sometimes had to fire a line to the tanker and pass by messenger. If on the rare chance weather was good just go alongside and pass by heaving line. JWS.
    Last edited by j.sabourn; 21st March 2020 at 01:05 AM.

  2. #12
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    Default Re: The offshore oil and gas industry.

    John, if just floating in the water what stops them from drifting off?
    Are any secured to the sea bed at all, and are they all now connected to pipes going ashore?
    Happy daze John in Oz.

    Life is too short to blend in.

    John Strange R737787
    World Traveller

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  4. #13
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    Default Re: The offshore oil and gas industry.

    They’re attached permanently to the connections on the buoy at one end. Both hose and rope float in the sea.
    Both hose and mooring are attached to a fixture on the buoy which moves through 360 degrees . So as the tanker moves to winds and tide it can do so without snarling the lines. When just floating without a big tanker stuck on the end of they did get snarled up, that was why they had a ship present to unsnarl. As long as they had weight on were ok unless God decided different. My first job out here was on a swire ship and before taking her back to Singapore they had one final job on an SBM buoy so asked me to land 3 workmen on the buoy to do some maintainance on the valves etc. to go alongside meant touching the buoy and I wasn’t to keen in case of any underwater obstructions , I was told they didn’t exist, so put the men onboard . Pulling away from the buoy , the chief had been down the bowthruster room there suddenly appeared a small hole in the shell plating followed by a stream of water, like the Dutch boy he stuck his finger in , then followed by a rag. The usual wooden plug and a cement box completed the temporary repair. She finally arrived in Singapore had to inform the owners so they could fix properly. Moral off the story beware of those bearing false information. Cheers JWS
    Last edited by j.sabourn; 21st March 2020 at 06:27 AM.

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    Default Re: The offshore oil and gas industry.

    A short one on the oil recovery vessels usually a committed SBSV also. The one I knew was a converted stern / trawler come factory ship . They carried a floating boom to encircle an oil spillage, this was laid by a launch carried by the vessel . The oil was then sucked up into the designated tanks of the vessel by hoses. Never saw this in practice , but there was supposed to be various such vessels designated to certain areas in the North Sea. JS

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