Fife heavy engineering firm BiFab has delivered the first of four major subsea jackets for the giant Cygnus gas field in the Southern North Sea.
The sailaway represents a major milestone towards fulfilment of a total £47 million contract with Cygnus operator GDF SUEZ E&P UK and its partners Centrica Energy and Bayerngas.
The Cygnus field – which lies 93 miles off the coast of Lincolnshire – is the most significant gas discovery in the North Sea for quarter of a century with proven and probable reserves of 18 billion cubic metres of gas.
Representatives of all three field development partners were at Methil to see the ‘Alpha’ jacket – an industry term used to describe seabed foundations for major offshore installations – begin its 380 kilometre journey to Cygnus.
Two of the remaining three jackets are due to be delivered this summer while the final structure is scheduled for completion by April 2015.
Jean-Claude Perdigues, managing director of GDF SUEZ E&P UK, said he was pleased with the progress made by BiFab on what was a vital piece of infrastructure for Cygnus.
“Our partnership with BiFab has resulted in the successful delivery of the first wellhead jacket as a key component of the first Cygnus sailaway and installation campaign,” Mr Perdigues said.
“Offshore deployment is now well underway, with other subsea and topside infrastructure already en route to site, 150 kilometres off the coast of Lincolnshire.”
Phil Nunn, Centrica Energy’s manager of non-operated offshore developments, said he was pleased the first of the jackets was on its way to its final destination.
“This significant investment by Centrica Energy and its partners has created jobs and apprenticeships in the local area, as well as securing gas supply for the whole country,” Mr Nunn said.
“We are delighted that the first jacket is now sailing out to the Cygnus field after being built safely and on time.”
The contract created a total of 100 new jobs at Methil and supported a further 15 apprenticeship positions at the yard and its sister facility at Burntisland.
The first of the completed jackets weighs in at 1,146 tonnes, is almost 40 metres high and took a year to produce following the ceremonial first steel cutting last May.
BiFab has since been awarded a further topsides contract for Cygnus for the construction of the quarters and utilities modules.
“We are delighted that the first of the jackets is ready for delivery,” BiFab managing director John Robertson said.
“This is an exciting project for BiFab and we are very proud to be a key member of the Cygnus project delivery team.”
The Cygnus jacket sailaway comes less than two weeks after Mr Robertson told The Courier the firm’s significant oil and gas contracts meant it was currently operating at “maximum capacity.”
However, he stressed the company – which is majority owned by Gothenburgh-based investment firm JCE Group – was always on the lookout for work to bolster its order book in order to improve its forward visibility.
While oil and gas contracts have given the firm a platform for growth in recent month, BiFab stated its concerns over the slow progress of the renewables industry when it published its annual report at Companies House earlier this month.
The firm – which detailed a major turnaround in the company’s finances from a £5.6 million loss in 2012 to a £5.8m pre-tax profit last year – said it had put back plans to double the capacity of its Methil yard by two years as a result of uncertainty over the subsidy regime for offshore windfarms.