108 HYLAB 5 performs by land or by sea

Intercoastal City, Louisiana (March, 2006) — “On a routine basis we drive timber location pile foundations with our new Link-Belt 108 HYLAB 5 on land, inshore waters and shallow marshlands. We also use it working from a floating barge or from solid ground for many other heavy lift applications. It’s a multi-functional crane, small with exceptional weight and balance,” said Jackie Duplechain, marine superintendent for BLR Companies.

“The crane is outfitted with one hundred feet of straight boom and the factory optional extra counterweight, which bumps its rating up to a 60 ton crane,” he added.

“In buying the newest Link-Belt model we are investing in the latest crane technology available. The clients we work for are very particular and don’t want to hear any downtime excuses. All they want is results,” said Maxim Doucet, owner and founder of BLR Companies of Rayne, Louisiana.

“An example of post hurricane work done with our barge-mounted Link-Belt 108 HYLAB 5 was a platform restoration operation in Vermillion Bay south of Intercoastal City, Louisiana. It involved recovery of objects both on the platform and underwater, having been blown off or washed overboard by the storms,” said Duplechain.

“We moved our crane and barge intact to the site from the Slidell area through the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and its navigation locks to a location about five miles south of Redfish Point in Vermillion Bay. Once in position, two 40’ X 16” spuds were lowered to help maintain the position. There was the 40’ X 120’ crane barge, a 30’ X 120’ support barge and our 22’ X 52’, 900 hp tug, The General.

“Weight, balance and stability -- very similar to loading a heavy, multi-engine aircraft -- all enter the picture. Just securing the crane to the barge is a major consideration; it’s an important operation for on-the-water work,” added Duplechain.

“The Link-Belt 108 H5 crane, with an operating weight of 98,830 lb., was resting on 12” X 12” timbers and fastened with a 1” diameter steel cable and two 3 foot long turnbuckles to a pair of pad eyes welded to the barge deck. The cable was snugged down, but with enough play to allow slight movement to prevent its snapping if an unanticipated impact load was suddenly applied.

The barges were fastened together with wire and hemp ropes to help spread the area of stability over a larger square foot area. Once this was done, divers were dispatched into the 10’ to 15’ deep soft soil bottomed water to locate and rig for lifting the various debris-entangled production platform components. After the divers were safely out of the water and back aboard the barge, Dale Torro, the crane operator, began the tricky procedure to recover the buoyed loads and gently lower them onto the waiting transport barge.

“BLR Companies are a Louisiana-based loose confederation of full-service oilfield companies serving the oil, gas and petro-chemical industries throughout Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. They offer every thing from “turnkey” oil well site location installations to storm or disaster related salvage, recovery or remediation operations, with crews working in both land and marine environments. Within the marine division we have tugs, tow boats, crew and supply boats. We also have spud barges, deck barges of all types and sizes with compatible sized cranes; pile driving crews, board road crews, drill crews, and roustabout crews. In other words, BLR does just about everything in the oil patch except drill the actual well itself,” continued Maxim Doucet, president of BLR Companies.

“Almost as soon as Hurricanes Katrina and Rita had left the area, we had barges with cranes on them to assist in the severely impacted recovery area. Extracting damaged or broken piling and driving new ones was both essential and time critical, as were the recovery and restoration of the production platform. The oil companies were adamant about resuming oil and natural gas production,” he added.

“With speed and safety at the utmost, it wasn’t long before this project was complete and it was time to move on to the next location. All our marine related hurricane recovery work has had to be done without any disruption to our normal schedule to our heavy regular customer base,” concluded Jackie Duplechain.