OREANDA-NEWS. LUKOIL has launched assembly of supporting blocks for the ice-resistant stationary platform located at Vladimir Filanovsky field in the Caspian Sea.

The supporting blocks will be attached to the seabed by means of twenty piles, each with a diameter of more than 2 meters. The piles will be hammered into the seafloor up to 60 meters deep to ensures secure mounting of the platform, making it resistant against potential extreme ice and wave exposure. The water depth at the assembly point is 7 meters. The combined weight of the two supporting blocks is around 5,000 tons. Each supporting block is 28.3 m long, 23.7 m wide and 16.4 m tall.

The supporting blocks are assembled by means of the Transport and Installation Barge (TIB), which has a crane with a loading capacity of 400 tons. The loading capacity of the TIB is 13,450 tons, it is 140.3 m long and 62.3 m wide. The T-shaped barge comprises one main pontoon and two additional side pontoons (outriggers), which magnify the vessel’s loading capacity and stability when carrying super-heavy large-size cargoes.

This year, LUKOIL plans to install more supporting blocks - for the platform of the living-quarters module, for the central processing platform and for the riser block. In 2014, topside sections will be mounted on the supporting blocks. All of the offshore facilities are manufactured by Astrakhan’s shipbuilding enterprises to orders from LUKOIL.

Commercial drilling at Vladimir Filanovsky field is scheduled to begin in 2014. Oil production is to begin by the end of 2015.