Hound Point - Mobile Bridge Encapsulation

Project Background

Hound Point is a marine oil export terminal located on the Southern shore of the Forth Estuary in Scotland. 

It is owned and operated by Ineos and serves to export North Sea oil globally. 

The terminal is made up of two berths plus one additional platform and these are interconnected by bridged walkways.

The original coating on one of the walkways had deteriorated severely and required recoating to ensure the structure remained fully operational. 

Client Initial Specified Work Scope

Our customer contracted us to design, supply and install a painting gantry with a habitat to allow them to blast and paint an access walkway.

The solution had to provide access to the entire walkway however the capacity of the walkway was limited – a previous campaign to complete the works with a traditional scaffold ran into difficulties when engineers found that the walkway could only be 50% scaffolded before the weight of the scaffold became too great.

Full environmental containment was required both to protect the environment and protect the team from the high winds typical of a tidal estuary.

The ideal solution would also allow the team to paint all touch / contact points as the scope progressed and provide an additional walkway outwith the habitat to allow personnel to bypass the habitat and use the walkway as normal. This would avoid the requirement for boat transfers around the asset

Our Solution

HAKI Access designed a solution based around their TechniSpan x750 platform system. The main reasons for choosing this system were;

1. Compatibility with TechniFloats. These would allow it to be built offsite at a local marina and launched down the slipway for towing out to the asset for installation.
2. High capacity of the system is suitable for heavy duty industrial applications e.g. blasting of steelwork
3. System works with all configurations of rigging – beam trolleys allowed it to be towed along the temporary runway beams

A rope access team installed the twin runway beam system in preparation for the float out. The platform was then launched from a local marina with the habitat equipment lashed to the deck to further reduce shipping costs.

The platform was lifted out of the water via a rope access lifting operation and connected to the runway beams with the habitat erected and sheeted prior to handover to the customer. To relocate the solution, the “gable end” sheeting was removed, brakes and props removed and towed along the gantry using wire rope pullers to it’s next location.

Safety & Commercial Benefits

The aim of the project was to blast and recoat the walkway along its full length during the summer weather window.

Our customer successfully achieved their target and the end customer was satisfied given a previous attempt to recoat the walkway has failed some years before with only half the walkway painted and non of the scaffold contract points captured following the removal of the scaffold.

The solution provided a user-relocatable habitat capable of accessing all areas of the bridge while reducing equipment on hire and loadings into the structure. 

The temporary steelwork was designed to allow users of the platform to remove one support at a time to ensure all contact points were captured prior to moving onto the next area. 

The innovative methodology of floating our the platform pre-erected avoided the issued of a lack of materials storage locations on the asses while reducing logistical costs in getting equipment out onto the asset.