Luxembourg-based dredging and engineering company Jan De Nul Group has successfully completed its first major installation and burial of the two main subsea umbilicals for the exploitation of new gas fields in the West Nile Delta concessions, located in the North Alexandria region.
Specifically for this project, the company reconfigured its multi-purpose vessel Willem de Vlamingh into an efficient Umbilical Installation Vessel. The two umbilicals, with a total length of 69 km, were loaded in Norway in May 2018 and transported to Egypt.
The challenging installation campaign started with a 3-km beach pull for which the Willem de Vlamingh positioned in water depths of only 7 m. Water depths significantly increased along the route. The campaign was successfully finalized early August 2018 with the precise installation of the Umbilical Termination Assembly at 600 metres water depth.
In order to safeguard the critical main umbilical, installation and burial were performed in parallel: Willem de Vlamingh installed the umbilical onto the seabed, directly followed by Isaac Newton for simultaneous burying of the umbilical using the jet trenching method.
