Maui Platform A

1. Maui Platform A By Doug St George

2. New Plymouth, Taranaki • Oil was first drilled on the New Plymouth shore in 1866, and produced from a depth of 60 feet.

3. ‘Discoverer II’ drillship explored the Taranaki Offshore prospects in 1969 and discovered the Maui Field, one of the largest gas fields in the world. The Sedco135F below continued drilling appraisal wells in the 1970s.

4. Construction of the Maui A platform started in 1974, and the steel jacket was built at Tsu, in Japan.

5. The steel jacket was designed to be self floating, for towing to New Zealand, and was designed for 354 feet water depth and 75 ft storm wave. Other design conditions include earthquake and storm winds.

6. The jacket was positioned in location and lowered to the sea floor by flooding the flotation tanks.

7. The job of driving piles then started, with long delays due to the Tasman Sea weather running the project over a year late. The Atlas 600 ton crane barge was replaced by the 47,000 ton Blue Whale, able to lift 1200 tons.

8. To try and allow work to proceed during bad weather, a helideck and Favco crane were fitted to the jacket.

9. The piles were 4 feet diameter and 4 inches thick and had to be welded and x-rayed before being lowered to the sea floor and driven down by steam hammer.

10. No pile driving could be done while the weather was bad and the crane-ship anchored a half mile away. The right-hand picture shows jetting operations, using water pressure to lower the piles into the sea-bed.

11. The platform has 9 ‘modules’ containing process equipment and living quarters that were assembled offshore like building blocks.

12. The modules were built in Singapore shipyards and rolled out onto barges for the long tow to New Zealand.

13. In the meantime, it was decided to complete the process modules in Port Taranaki, to cut about a year off the work required offshore.

14. One Favco crane went offshore to allow work on the piling, while the other Favco was installed on the module.

15. Offshore, a Raymond underwater hammer was trialled, to try and drive the piles during bad weather.

16. The Blue Whale crane-ship could lift 1200 tons. A man can’t lift a shackle pin.

17. Eventually, the last pile was driven and grouted into place, and the modules could be lifted onto the platform.

18. The modules were finally placed in December 1977. 7 days after the living quarters were placed, over 60 men were living and working on the platform, with power, water, kitchen equipment all operating.

19. The drilling rig was installed, to start drilling 14 wells. Completion of the process facilities continued at the same time.

20. As each well was completed, using directional drilling, it was flared to clean up the piping.

21. In the meantime, the two pipelines to Oaonui, 21 miles away were laid, one for gas, one for condensate.

22. Crew changing was done by 15 seater Bell 212, the twin-engined version of the Iroquois, and some smaller helicopters.

23. Once the drilling was completed, the drilling rig was removed and Maui A production commenced in April 1979.

24. The Maui field had two interconnected reservoirs, and in order to recover all the hydrocarbons, Maui B platform was installed a further 12 miles offshore. Oil was produced to a permanently moored tanker that offloaded to smaller coastal tankers. Production ceased in 2006. Photo: STOS