Fossil Energy – Decommissioning
After numerous safety incidents McDermott heavy lift vessel DLV 2000 left without completing work at Woodside’s Stybarrow field.
Just 50km from Exmouth, oil production equipment connected to a tangle of pipelines remains on the seabed after an offshore construction vessel returned to Singapore with a string of safety incidents.
Woodside hired the advanced offshore construction vessel DLV 2000, owned by US company McDermott, to clean up the unproductive Stybarrow oil field, which it inherited when it bought BHP’s petroleum division in 2022.
But the decommissioning work has been plagued by at least three serious safety incidents involving lifting equipment, and now the biggest lift – of a 700-tonne-plus detachable turret mooring (DTM) – will have to wait for another costly mobilisation of a heavy lift vessel to Australia’s northwest.
