ACE achieves major milestone amid challenges

The drilling derrick for the ACE platform has arrived in Baku despite the challenges and restrictions

Following a fantastic journey, all three sections of the derrick for the ACE project have been safely offloaded from the barge and positioned at ATA site’s construction location. 

This was the culmination of the derricks intercontinental journey, from Norway, where it was designed, to South Korea, where it was fabricated. It was then shipped from South Korea to Baku via Constanta in Romania to be transferred to a barge for its final journey via the Volga-Don shipping canal to the Caspian and Baku.

This is one of the most successful outcomes of the project so far, which started with high risk to our construction programmedue to pot ential arrival delay related to possible adverse weather conditions. However, thanks to One Team effort and professionalism of all involved stakeholders from both the ACE project team and contractors, the derrick is now on the site and ready for further installation activities.

Colin Simpson, topsides delivery manager: "Great achievement by a great team! Congratulations to all those who have worked hard to have this engineered, procured, fabricated and now delivered to Baku, ready for assemblya nd installation over the next 6 months."