McDermott’s ‘custom-built’ lifting cradle puts the icing on the decom cake offshore Australia

U.S. offshore engineering and construction player McDermott has brought a decommissioning assignment to an end off the coast of Western Australia. The company highlights that its lifting cradle played a key role in setting the seal on this project.

After securing an engineering, procurement, removal, and disposal contract with Australia’s Santos in November 2023, McDermott was put in charge of the full removal and disposal of the Campbell platform, part of the Varanus Island hub offshore infrastructure in Western Australia.

Located in the North West Shelf (NWS) off Western Australia, the Varanus hub, encompassing the John Brookes, Spartan, and Greater East Spar (GES) gas fields, relies on subsea pipelines for the transport of oil and gas production from the fields to the Varanus Island hub.

Located in the Carnarvon Basin, approximately 105 km west-northwest of Dampier, the Campbell platform was a monopod structure secured to the seabed by three piled legs, which was normally unmanned with simple facilities and minimal topside equipment.

The decommissioning award enabled the U.S. player to handle project management and engineering services related to the removal and transportation of the platform topsides, substructure, and associated items to an onshore facility for dismantling and disposal. 

According to McDermott, the decommissioning work on the Campbell platform and associated offshore infrastructure at the Varanus Island hub has been completed. The deployment of the firm’s “custom-built” lifting cradle is said to have been central to the project’s success.

McDermott claims that the lifting cradle, which was “specifically engineered to address the unique complexities of the platform’s upper substructure,” was designed and constructed at its Batam fabrication yard, with engineering support from teams in Perth, Australia; Chennai, India; and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Mahesh Swaminathan, McDermott’s Senior Vice President of Subsea and Floating Facilities, commented: “The successful removal of the Campbell platform topsides and substructures leveraged our expertise in circular practices and subsea project execution across the energy value chain.

“This demonstrates our commitment to support clients in tackling complex challenges with creative problem-solving solutions that enable offshore decommissioning efforts and circularity across Australia’s energy sector.”

The wrap-up of the decommissioning project in Australia comes a month after McDermott won work on a gas project off the coast of Trinidad and Tobago with Shell.

McDermott got hold of several new projects in 2024, including a new assignment in the Middle East with TotalEnergies, which will enable it to work on a solar-powered LNG project in Oman.