In 2016, the Turkish firm ILK Construction was awarded the EPIC contract for in the installation of subsea pipelines and cables for the West Diyarbekir, Central Diyarbekir and Garagol Deniz Drilling Platforms. These Platforms are situated in the Caspian Sea, near the Turkmenistan coast. The project scope also included the landfall of a 14″ concrete-coated steel pipeline. Bezemer Dordrecht provided ILK with a linear winch and technical support to complete this part of the project.  

The provided winch spread 

The provided winch was a KTC 400, a 500 tonnes linear winch, which was rented to deliver a maximum pulling force of 350 tonnes for this project. The winch was provided with a power unit, and a storage winch with two reels of 1200 meter 88,9 mm steel wire rope to complete the 2370-meter shore lay and shore pull operation. 

Completion of the shore pull  

After the installation of the equipment at the Turkmenistan shore, the pull cable had to be positioned. This was done using a cable lay barge containing a hydraulic spooling winch. This winch would slowly unroll the reel as it moves away from the landfall point. The linear winch on shore held the other end of the wire fixed as the reel unwound.  

 Once the wire was appropriately positioned, the shore pull operation commenced. The pipe’s pull head was connected to the steel wire rope and the KTC 400 smoothly pulled the pipe to shore. The installation of the 2370-meter 14” concrete-coated pipeline contained one socket pass and was completed in a couple of days.