Client: Locar Guindastes e Transportes Intermodais S.A. (Locar)
Project: Bespoke offloading hose reelers for an Offshore Terminal Support Vessel (OTSV)
Location: Offshore Brazil
The challenge
Locar was contracted by Petrobras in Brazil to develop and deliver an Offshore Terminal Support Vessel (OTSV). The OTSV would be tasked with maintaining the offloading lines for Floating Offshore Storage and Production (FPSO) vessels, tankers and monobuoys, including the capability to launch and recover offloading hoses for maintenance operations. Two offloading hose reelers would be necessary in order to fulfill these requirements.
The solution
Designed by Innovo by our engineering team in Italy, the two bespoke offloading hose reelers were manufactured, tested and ready for installation in under six months after project award.
In what is believed to be a first for equipment of this scale, manufacturing and testing of the reelers was undertaken in Ras Al Khaimah, UAE by Innovo, and shipped to China for installation on the OTSV. Innovo’s significant experience in the UAE since 2013 and the high quality of Emirati products – the envy of many European manufacturers – resulted in a fast and efficient turnaround in under six months from contract award.
The reelers feature:
- Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs), Hydraulic Power Units (HPUs) and level-winders for the launch, recovery and storage of offloading hoses.
- Each reel capable of storing 400m of fully retracted hose line, regardless of the sections that will be on deck.
- Spooling-in and spooling-out of the hoses is supported by moving them laterally using two independent level-winders to accommodate them on the drum. The design ensures safe and controlled spooling-up and unspooling.
Innovo project-managed the shipping of the reelers to China where our personnel supervised their installation on the OTSV by Locar and commissioned the reelers when the vessel arrived in Brazil.
The result
- Delivery in under six months of two bespoke offloading reelers
- Manufacturing in UAE, shipped to China for installation – a first for equipment of this scale
- Commissioning on arrival in Brazil.