FES International Completes Swivel Refurbishment Project in Gulf of Mexico

Global supplier of fluid transfer systems, FES International, has completed a major £2.4M swivel refurbishment contract for Houston-based oil and gas company, Talos ERT.

The swivels form part of a Disconnectable Transfer System (DTS)/Turret, which FES supplied to Helix ERT in 2008 for a vessel operating in the oil fields of the Green Bank Canyon, in the Gulf of Mexico.

DTSs/Turrets enable the simultaneous transfer of fluids from subsea wellheads to vessels without the need for manual intervention.

Throughout the project, FES provided technical support for the disassembly of the swivel stack and the rebuilding on the vessel.

Ian Latimer, co-founder and technical director at FES headed up a team of 30 working on the project. He said: “This has been a significant project for us and it demonstrates how we can work within a tight time-frame and achieve great results. One main challenge was to ship the swivels to our UK site, refurbish them and return them to the US within four weeks.

“We only had 17 days to carry out the work, yet successfully managed to complete the assignment ahead of schedule thanks to our strong team of 30 experts. The eight months planning and preparation resulted in the project’s seamless completion.”

Press Release, November 15, 2013; Image: Helix