Pioneers in the North Sea
For the last 30 years ISC has been awarded contacts for jobs at most of the Maersk installations in the North Sea, but ambitions reach further – even to setting up wind turbines offshore.
In 1979, when ISC A/S established a branch office in Esbjerg, the humble offshore industry in the town was still radiating a certain Klondyke-atmosphere with foreign specialists crowding the hotel rooms and rented houses. It was a time of quick decisions and as little cumbersome bureaucracy as possible. “The town was characteristic for its many English-speaking experts. Some were competent, and some were a little bit too big for their boots, but without them we would not have been able to build up our know-how, and Maersk, actually, recommended that we took them on to develop our skills. Especially the so-called 10+, process engineers with more than ten years of experience, were in demand,” recalls Department Manager of the Esbjerg office, Jens Møller Jensen.
  Deputy director Lars Dam Rasmussen and Department Manager of the ISC Esbjerg office, Jens Møller Jensen. Photo: Niels Husted |
The consulting engineers had been players in the offshore industry years before its director, civil engineer Kjeld Thomsen, decided to set up an office in the leading offshore town of the country. In 1975 ISC had been involved in design and detailed projecting of the Maersk Oil Dan B platform, making the company one of the pioneers in the North Sea. From settling down in Esbjerg and till the boom-years in the beginning of the 90es its staff grew from some 20 to about 90 specialists, all of them primarily involved in oil & gas projects.
In 1991, after moving its engineering department to Esbjerg, Maersk Oil initiated the concept of in-house advisors requiring that jobs were distributed more or less evenly between ISC, Ramboll and Cowi. ISC was awarded the fields Gorm and Skjold seeing the largest extensions and development.
Multi-disciplinary strength
ISC’s list of references within platform know-how since then has grown to an impressive length, and even if the company has been overtaken in size by its colleague and competitor, Ramboll, it is still holding a strong position in the offshore industry.
“We were responsible for six of the conceptual designs of the latest seven platforms in the Danish sector of the North Sea. Our strength is multi-disciplinary concepts combining several engineering disciplines, typically related to construction, electrical, chemical and engine. During the latest 10-15 years we have increased our internal cooperation in order to make the entire platform function as an integrated unit,” claims Jens Møller Jensen.
Through the years Maersk Oil has been its major client, and seven or eight of the company’s 70 staff in Esbjerg are stationed at Maersk in Esbjerg or in Qatar. One of the specialities is tie-in projects connecting a new platform with several existing ones. Here the job is demanding for the offshore engineers as installation of piping systems, bridges, electricity and control systems must take place without closing down production. In this way the entire instrumentation of the Tyra gas field was replaced, while the platform was still producing.
ISC has been involved in more than 20 major tie-in jobs, which each may account for some 20.000 hours to plan and carry out.
In 1992-93, when the Skjold platform was extended, the detailed projecting called for 50.000 man/hours, but such time-consuming engineering contracts are getting less frequent these days.
ISC is projecting the Lillegrund
Wind Farm in Øresund South.
The transformer platforms
accumulate the produced
electricity from the turbines
offshore and increase the
voltage to reduce loss prior
to transmitting the electricity ashore.
“Now we present a concept design shipped off to a yard in Singapore where engineers go for a lower day-rate, but we are still competitive, as we can combine the disciplines and think along lateral lines. Where the Singepore engineer is used to hierarchies and strict lines of command, we may combine engineering knowledge with anarchy and wild ideas and end up presenting a creative solution.”
“We work quite a lot for Maersk Contractors owning rigs all around the world, and we cooperate in international jobs with NKT Flexibles at Kalundborg. But we do not want to stampede blindly out into the wide world and run the risk of not being able to render a satisfactory service to our clients at home,” states deputy director Lars Dam Rasmussen.
ISC is often following in the wake of Maersk when launching international projects like the one in Qatar, but French Elf, Statoil and Hess are among its clients as well.
Potential in wind turbines
Deputy Director Lars Dam Rasmussen has a thorough know-how of ISC’s latest speciality –transformer platforms for offshore wind turbines. He, himself, was involved in the 700 tons platform placed at the Nysted Wind Farm south of Lolland, and at present ISC is projecting the Lillegrund Wind Farm in Øresund South and the Q7 in the Dutch Channel both for Bladt Industries A/S, Aalborg, being one of the companies, ISC is cooperating with in several areas.
The transformer platforms accumulate the produced electricity from the turbines offshore and increase the voltage to reduce loss prior to transmitting the electricity ashore.
Since the Rødsand job in 2000, seeing Lars Dam Rasmussen as the project manager, ISC has been responsible for the detailed projecting of three transformer platforms, and he has participated in some 10 projects e.g. the ones handled by SEAS-NVE at Gibraltar and DONG Energy in the German sector.
“We believe that this sector has a substantial long-term potential. Countries like Denmark and Germany want to replace land-based wind turbines with offshore windfarms, and wind turbines have turned out to be more profitable when placed offshore.”
ISC is involved in projects weighing up to 4,000 tons i.a. for the Swedish Vattenfall establishing a direct current connection between Denmark and Sweden, and lately the company has been awarded a contract for projecting the transformer platform for the Horn’s Ref B - the largest wind turbine park in the world soon to be established off the west coast of Jutland.
The dimensions of the transformer platforms may be up to 40x30x20 meters, and seen from an engineering point of view it is not only a high tension sy-stem. It is possible to create multi-disciplin solutions within the same areas as seen in the oil & gas industry. Offshore contracts now constitute some 35% of ISC Rådgivende Ingeniører’s total portefolio, and wind turbines account for 5-7% of its total turn-over. Lars Dam Rasmussen can easily imagine a doubling of this figure, and thereby ISC will meet its desire for playing a major part in the supply of sustainable energy.
