LMU Design, Supply and Supervision Project for the Construction of the P4 Rashadat Platform

Offshore platforms are mainly installed for oil and gas extraction and refining at sea. The platform components are the jacket, which is the base of the platform, and the deck, which is installed on the jacket structure, and all processes are carried out on the deck. This project is also related to the P4 Rashadat platform, which weighs about 6,000 tons.

Offshore platform decks are installed at sea in two ways: Lift and Float over. The choice of each of these methods depends on the weight of the deck and the available equipment. Given that the Lift method requires high-tonnage crane vessels, which are very few in high tonnage and do not exist in the world above 10,000 tons, the Float over method is used to install decks with high weights.

The Float over method means that the platform deck is placed on a carrier vessel, which is called a barge. When the barge arrives at the site, the carrier barge is placed between the jacket legs and the barge is submerged and the deck is installed on the jacket. Due to the high sensitivity of the Float Over operation, an intermediate piece between the deck and the jacket called LMU is required. The LMU’s task is to absorb the forces entering the deck and the jacket. The design and construction of this piece has very high technical complexity and has not been done in Iran so far.