Secrets Revealed: The Giant That Looms Over Southport Coastline

Even by the standards of other Liverpool Bay rigs and structures, the Valaris Norway (called “Rowan Norway” on ship-tracking apps), which currently towers above the horizon off the Sefton Coast, is hard to miss.

A “jack-up” rig of gargantuan proportions, the vessel has legs 173 metres long that can be deployed to 150 metres, and if called upon, can drill to a depth of 10,670 metres.
With heliport and all mod cons, the vessel can accommodate 130 people.

Like the Irish Sea Pioneer which was an occasional visitor offshore over the years, jack-up vessels are astonishing feats of engineering.
Put simply they are towed out to an area where they are working, drop their legs, pitch tent as it were, do the job, haul up their legs and are towed off again.

Dominating the Lennox platform, for so long a feature off the coast, the role of this behemoth is as fascinating as its vital statistics.
Eni UK, the company which owns and operates the oil and gas fields in Liverpool Bay are in the process of decommissioning up to 55 of the offshore wells here as they reach the end of their production life.

This is where the “jack up giant” comes in.
As well as the decommissioning, up to 11 of the wells will be converted so that they can be reused to store carbon dioxide in the depleted oil and gas reservoirs beneath the seabed as part of a wider HyNet Carbon Capture and Storage project.

Carbon capture and storage means that carbon dioxide gas can be trapped and locked away – in this case beneath the seabed, so preventing it being released into the atmosphere, where it is a major contributor to climate change.

The carbon dioxide is removed from energy-intensive industries and transported by underground pipeline to be stored in the depleted reservoirs beneath the bay floor.
This will allow carbon dioxide emissions from north-west industry to be stored under Liverpool Bay as part of the UK’s net zero targets.
For more information on this project, go to www.hynet.co.uk

The work is expected to take up to three and a half years to fully complete, and during this time the Valaris Norway will move to various positions around the bay – so the giant won’t be off Ainsdale all the time.

As with other structures out in the bay a 500-metre exclusion zone is in place around the rig.
Full emergency measures are in place should issues arise during the decommissioning process.
Any waste arising during the process is backloaded under contract to a supply base at Heysham, where it is managed by a contractor"

Source Green Sefton. Pic Facebook