In 2011 the Royal Lankhorst Euronete Group signed a contract to supply Petroleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras) with approximately 11,000 tons of deepwater mooring ropes with a value of around US$ 75 million. The largest contract ever awarded to produce deepwater mooring ropes for oil and gas platforms in the world.
Deepwater rope tether manufacture is a high technology, engineering business. The mooring ropes will use a Gama 98 rope construction, providing the optimum balance of mechanical properties and long term fatigue resistance. The rope is made from high efficiency sub-rope cores laid parallel.
Each sub-rope is computer monitored during tether manufacture to ensure all sub-ropes have equal tension and length. Typically, Gama 98 ropes have up to 18 subropes, each sub-rope being of a long lay length 8 x 1 construction, which gives a 100% torque free rope. The stiffness of the Gama 98 means there is less stretch during the rope bedding-in, translating into smaller platform offset and lower pre-tensioning during installation.
The production facility of Lankhorst Euronete Brasil covers around 5,000m2, in a property in the Industrial site of Queimados in Rio de Janeiro of 18,000m2,with easy access to the port of Rio de Janeiro and Sepetiba. Maritime ropes for tug boats, tankers and other types of shipping vessels are already being manufactured at the site.
[mappress] Subsea World News Staff , April 27, 2012; Image: Lankhorst