Eight towing chocks, each rated at 180 tonnes safe working load, have been completed and crated for hull 09J110052, the floating production unit being built for BP’s Kaskida development in the US Gulf of Mexico. Each chock is a single steel casting rather than a fabrication, dressed and dimensionally checked at the works, and the set is certified to ABS.
The units are finish painted before they leave the shop and banded to their own pallet for shipment. The throat is the working surface, and the internal webbing that carries the line load back into the deck structure can be seen through the opening of the second casting.
Kaskida lies about 250 miles south-west of New Orleans in the Keathley Canyon area, under roughly 6,000 feet of water. The unit is a single topside module carried on a four-column semi-submersible hull, built under an engineering, procurement and construction contract held by Seatrium, and is designed to produce 80,000 barrels a day from six wells in the first phase of the development. First oil is scheduled for 2029.
Mooring and towing fittings of this type — chocks, fairleads, bollards and rollers — are supplied to order against class certification, through our office in Singapore.