Navigating Stormpetrel

What happens when you develop a leak on a 6MPa, 515degC steam-line and are nine days away from a port?  This is the scenario recently facing the team on the LNG tanker Northwest Stormpetrel.

The client’s Maintenance and Modifications Services team were engaged to put together a solution to allow the Stormpetrel to continue delivering LNG cargos to their Asian customers.  What followed over the next seven days was a great demonstration of incredible teamwork and quick thinking to develop and implement a repair procedure to ensure that resources and equipment were ready portside when the vessel arrived back to Australia, mobilise personnel and complete repair operations without incident and on schedule.

The teams worked together to ensure that: Monadelphous welding resources were re-directed from another scope; a repair plan was put in place and approved by the Classification Society; welder qualifications were successfully carried out at our Bibra Lake training facility; certified replacement pipe material was sourced following material identifications of the original 30-year-old pipe; specialised heat treatment and NDT subcontractors were sourced and all the required equipment was collected and trucked up to Dampier.

As Stormpetrel arrived off the port, a four-person repair team comprised of a Monadelphous Welding Inspector, Monadelphous Coded Welder, Subcontractor Heat Treatment Technician and Subcontractor NDE Technician was waiting to greet her and the crew.  What followed was a three-hour launch ride out to meet the vessel and then a further 17 hours of sailing to a safe location, where the vessel could immobilise and drift for three days while the repairs were carried out.

Once the repairs were completed and the steam plant was brought back online, the vessel was able to set sail for Dampier again, where the repair team disembarked and the crew prepared for loading the next cargo.

According to QA/QC Coordinator Jake Maxfield, what made this challenging mission a success was the close collaboration between the customer teams, Monadelphous, Lloyd Register and the vessel charters, NWSSSC.

“The Monadelphous team did an exceptional job of developing and executing a workable solution in the short time available and the crew aboard Stormpetrel managed the situation safely under very trying conditions,” Jake said.

“Reflecting on it now, the biggest challenge was in ensuring all the pieces were in place initially – after that the repairs went as per plan.”