This project involves the development of oil and gas reserves in the Sea of Okhotsk, on the north-eastern shelf of Sakhalin Island, including the Chaivo, Odoptu, and Arkutun-Dagi fields. The project is operated by the company Exxon Neftegas Ltd. (an affiliate of the American corporation Exxon Mobil). The project consortium also includes Rosneft (Russia), ONGC Videsh (India), and SODECO (Japan).
The fields are linked to the De-Kastri export terminal in Khabarovsk Krai by a pipeline. Six of SCF’s Aframax shuttle tankers with a high ice class are engaged in transporting oil from the terminal: Yuri Senkevich, Viktor Titov, Victor Konetsky Captain Kostichev, Pavel Chernysh, and Sakhalin Island.
In addition, two of SCF Group’s multipurpose icebreaking supply vessels (Vitus Bering and Aleksey Chirikov) service the drilling platforms 'Berkut' (Arkutun-Dagi field) and 'Orland' (Chaivo): all of these vessels work under long-term contracts with the project operator.
In 2012 Sovcomflot, in cooperation with its partner, the Dutch company Van Oord, successfully hauled and installed one of the world’s largest drilling platforms – the “Berkut”, for the Arkutun-Dagi field - in the Sea of Okhotsk.
- More about the installation of the 'Berkut' platform for the Arkutun-Dagi field
-
In June 2012 Sovcomflot, in cooperation with its partner, the Dutch company Van Oord, successfully undertook the hauling of the foundations of the “Berkut” platform for the Arkutun-Dagi field. This construction, weighing several tonnes, was fixed at a depth of 35 metres in exact accordance with the technical instructions given. The platform’s concrete foundations weigh 130,000 tonnes, cover an area of 135 x 100 metres, and each of its four columns are 41 metres in height. The multi-national SCF team trained for two years to prepare for this extremely complex project. 15 vessels were involved in the project, including five large ocean-going tugs with a total capacity of 80 megawatts. Haulage took 13 days in total, during which time the platform travelled over a thousand nautical miles, at an average speed of 3.3 knots. Another week was required to take the construction safely and accurately to the depths of the ocean. During this operation weather conditions were significantly worse than usual. Every move by the team was planned in advance; its specialists developed over 250 procedures to bring the operation to its completion, and used the very latest engineering technologies and underwater robots.