The Stampede Project to Hess as an enterprise is critically important. I mean, this is one of the places we’re spending a great deal of capital, and getting ready for production.
What we’re seeing right now is a major integration step. So, getting this deck onto this hull, is a really critical step because it’s one you get to do one time. And when you only have one time to do it, it has to be done right.
Today, we are loading out the topsides. We’re skidding it onto the loadout barge in preparation for our large lift of the topsides using the HLD cranes here at the Kiewit Offshore Services yard.
We are moving from a fabrication, supply phase, into an installation, integration, commissioning, hookup phase.
The loadout of the topsides is an extremely important milestone for the project. Today, you’re seeing the movement of a deck that’s almost ten thousand tons in weight. We’ve got a barge here that’s four hundred foot by one hundred foot—numerous people staged on that barge, operating the winches that are pulling the cable and skidding the topsides out. There’s ballast pumps on the barge itself that are emptying out the water as we load on and transfer weight. So, a lot of simultaneous operations—a lot of heavy activity going on today, but planned very well and operated safely.
We’ve had an amazing safety record at KOS over the last couple of years. I think we’re up to about seven hundred and fifty days without a recordable—and merely 2.2 million man hours. And, that safety work has been tremendous in terms of being able to deliver a quality product. That’s a key enabler for us as to where we are today.
The preparation for today involved a number of Lean principles—they are closely working at Gemba—at the worksite to understand what the challenges are. And for instance, they’re actually loading the decking onto the barge. They anticipated that job to take anywhere from eight to ten hours. They are going to realize it in about six.
What we’ve always talked about at Hess is how Lean applies to the onshore world. What we’re trying to demonstrate here with this project is Lean can apply anywhere and any process.
Today, we’re setting the topsides on the hull. Before this, we had a hull, and we had the topsides. And now, we have an integrated facility.
From this morning at about 7 o’clock till now, about 5:00, we’ve had a flawless execution of this integration. We’ve got an approximately ten-thousand-ton deck that we’re setting on top of the hull which was fabricated in Korea.
We’ve been spending the last two years—in fact, two years to the day, since we cut steel here at the yard, and all in preparation for this. Today, we’re an integrated facility, bringing the hull and topsides together. From there, we’re going to complete a few more HLD lifts, and then, we’re going to finish out all of our hookup work and get it commissioned, get it tested, get it to operations, and start taking it out for an install.