France's Coflexip Stena Offshore Group said Thursday that one of its Gulf of Mexico-based entities, Coflexip Stena Offshore Inc. (CSOI), will build a rigid pipe spool base at Mobile, Ala., to support its offshore pipelay and construction work with the CSO Deep Blue and CSO Apache vessels in the Gulf of Mexico.
The base is on a 130-acre site for which CSOI has secured a long-term lease. The $10 million investment involves a deepwater dock, access roads, rail access, storage areas, and infrastructure for high specification pipe welding, preparation and loading.
The deepwater dock is adjacent to a deepwater channel. It will provide a facility for assembly, storage, spooling, or loading of rigid pipelines prior to installation in deepwater by the ultradeepwater pipelay vessel CSO Deep Blue or by the rigid reel-lay vessel CSO Apache.
The configuration of the site will allow for other operations besides pipe fabrication, said CSO.
The first project for the base will be CSO Deep Blue's 100-mile Boomvang-Nansen export pipeline contract, announced earlier this month (OGJ Online, Oct. 11, 2000).
