Andy Wightman

[SandyCromarty]

1 hour ago, Futureboy said:

I spent a bit of time working at Hartlepool just prior to the first of the Brents coming in. We had a much bigger project team than those involved in the decom job. The reality is that by the time time the topsides arrive at the quayside for destruct, it doesn't support that much employment. You are basically looking at a handful of subcontracted guys with gas axes.

I think it was the NW Hutton or Murchie which had been decommissioned before we got there, and the place resembled a giant scrapheap challenge.

Some decom work has been carried out in Scotland. Buchan A was done at Lerwick and Spirit Energy's Morcambe Bay platforms are going to Fife this year.

I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure Nigg is limited by the tonnage it can accommodate so it would be limited to taking smaller topsides.

The dry dock at Nigg is the largest in Europe and access is by deep water and obviously not affected by tides, it easily can accommodate two semi's side by side with plenty space left over, over and above that the yard acreage is massive. The dry dock floating access wall is the largest in the world. As far as I can see by archive photos Hartlepool dry dock can only accommodate one ship at a time.

[Futureboy]

53 minutes ago, SandyCromarty said:

The dry dock at Nigg is the largest in Europe and access is by deep water and obviously not affected by tides, it easily can accommodate two semi's side by side with plenty space left over, over and above that the yard acreage is massive. The dry dock floating access wall is the largest in the world. As far as I can see by archive photos Hartlepool dry dock can only accommodate one ship at a time.

Aye, I've been on a semi in Nigg a few times. 

When I was at Hartlepool, they extended/strengthened the dry dock to take the weight of the big platforms. It can take something like 28,000T. They were using the steel from an old jacket as reinforcement.

I tried to find out about the capacity of Nigg but couldn't see figures, just that it's marketed as suitable for mobiles, and ships. I'm assuming (possibly wrongly) that it's not strong enough to take a big platform. I've only seen one semi in the DD at one time and that's what, about 15,000-18,000T?

ETA: Hartlepool DD is a fair bit larger than Nigg.

Edited March 12, 2021 by Futureboy

[Futureboy]

4 minutes ago, Pato said:

The steel is an easy one but there's also huge amounts of concrete, all the biofouled gunk that gets washed off and can neither go back in the sea or in a hole in the ground, radioactive slurry etc.

97% of the Brent's were suitable for recycling. Asbestos on old platforms is relatively prevalent. As far as possible NORM is flushed before the platform arrives ashore so the steel can be recycled. Not much concrete comes ashore, the concrete gravity base structure is left in the sea and capped.

[SandyCromarty]

18 hours ago, Futureboy said:

Aye, I've been on a semi in Nigg a few times. 

When I was at Hartlepool, they extended/strengthened the dry dock to take the weight of the big platforms. It can take something like 28,000T. They were using the steel from an old jacket as reinforcement.

I tried to find out about the capacity of Nigg but couldn't see figures, just that it's marketed as suitable for mobiles, and ships. I'm assuming (possibly wrongly) that it's not strong enough to take a big platform. I've only seen one semi in the DD at one time and that's what, about 15,000-18,000T?

ETA: Hartlepool DD is a fair bit larger than Nigg.

I was unaware of the massive investment by the westminster government on Hartlepool's decommissioning facility, obviously in preparation for the bulk of the North Sea  Platform decommissioning.

It's another snub to Scotland the home of the North Sea Oil Industry and especially in my part of the country where we have a large dry dock at Nigg, I'm sure given the size of the dry dock in Nigg that it would have cost less to increase the size compared to hartlepool, plus the Nigg facility covers 238 acres compared to Hartlepools 126 acres.

 

[strichener]

45 minutes ago, SandyCromarty said:

I was unaware of the massive investment by the westminster government on Hartlepool's decommissioning facility, obviously in preparation for the bulk of the North Sea  Platform decommissioning.

It's another snub to Scotland the home of the North Sea Oil Industry and especially in my part of the country where we have a large dry dock at Nigg, I'm sure given the size of the dry dock in Nigg that it would have cost less to increase the size compared to hartlepool, plus the Nigg facility covers 238 acres compared to Hartlepools 126 acres.

 

Snub to Scotland?  The Humberside project was delivered by taking advantage of the Enterprise zone benefits for capital allowances and rates relief.  Scotland had  the opportunity to do an equivalent scheme but chose a different approach.  You can read about this here.

[Scary Bear]

£10k achieved.

[Futureboy]

13 hours ago, SandyCromarty said:

I was unaware of the massive investment by the westminster government on Hartlepool's decommissioning facility, obviously in preparation for the bulk of the North Sea  Platform decommissioning.

It's another snub to Scotland the home of the North Sea Oil Industry and especially in my part of the country where we have a large dry dock at Nigg, I'm sure given the size of the dry dock in Nigg that it would have cost less to increase the size compared to hartlepool, plus the Nigg facility covers 238 acres compared to Hartlepools 126 acres.

 

You are entirely missing the point. A dry dock doesn't work by size, it works by the tonnage per sq m it is in a position to facilitate. I'm going to assume your experience is limited to platforms.  As Strichener points out, Hartlepool took advantage of the Enterprise Zone. 

Anyway, Andy Wightman.

[SandyCromarty]

9 hours ago, Futureboy said:

You are entirely missing the point. A dry dock doesn't work by size, it works by the tonnage per sq m it is in a position to facilitate. I'm going to assume your experience is limited to platforms.  As Strichener points out, Hartlepool took advantage of the Enterprise Zone. 

Anyway, Andy Wightman.

Ok I'll take that on board, my work experience since the early 80's covers initially hands on, commissioning new builds and rig inspection/surveys on Platforms, Semi's, Jack Up's and Land Rigs on a worldwide basis, my North Sea time was limited. Too many yards to remember but Verolme's, Blohm and Voss, Harland and Wolff, Baoji China, Hyudai, Mitsibishi Nagasaki, Livingstone Brownsville, both Keppel and Jurong Singapore, Lamprell Dubai to name some but theer is others I can't remember, getting fuckin old  I suppose.

I've also worked on and inspected rigs worldwide wherever there was exploration, the furthest being offshore West Australia and the weirdest being upcountry Pakistan where the Chinese operated land rig was constantly monitered by banditry and travel was by military planes and  bulletproof  Land Cruisers with two armed guards.

So over the years my experience in most areas of the oil and gas industry has been a broad spectrum and filled with highs and lows.

Again thanks for the pointer on dry dock utilisation.

[Futureboy]

12 minutes ago, SandyCromarty said:

Ok I'll take that on board, my work experience since the early 80's covers initially hands on, commissioning new builds and rig inspection/surveys on Platforms, Semi's, Jack Up's and Land Rigs on a worldwide basis, my North Sea time was limited. Too many yards to remember but Verolme's, Blohm and Voss, Harland and Wolff, Baoji China, Hyudai, Mitsibishi Nagasaki, Livingstone Brownsville, both Keppel and Jurong Singapore, Lamprell Dubai to name some but theer is others I can't remember, getting fuckin old  I suppose.

I've also worked on and inspected rigs worldwide wherever there was exploration, the furthest being offshore West Australia and the weirdest being upcountry Pakistan where the Chinese operated land rig was constantly monitered by banditry and travel was by military planes and  bulletproof  Land Cruisers with two armed guards.

So over the years my experience in most areas of the oil and gas industry has been a broad spectrum and filled with highs and lows.

Again thanks for the pointer on dry dock utilisation.

It sounds like our paths may have crossed at some point then, having been to the majority of these places myself, amongst others.

My weirdest moment was having a private helicopter known within the company as "Airwolf", flying a solo me around various rigs in the GoM at my request, but I'm not sure what relevance any of that has to the issue you raised about dry docks and the use of Nigg as a decom hub.

[GordonS]

[Sherrif John Bunnell]

Given that it appears he has chosen to side with the baddies on the Sturgeon committee, it's hard to see where he'll pick up any list votes from now.

[GordonS]

3 minutes ago, Sherrif John Bunnell said:

Given that it appears he has chosen to side with the baddies on the Sturgeon committee, it's hard to see where he'll pick up any list votes from now.

The Wings folk will love him.

[tirso]

2 minutes ago, Sherrif John Bunnell said:

Given that it appears he has chosen to side with the baddies on the Sturgeon committee, it's hard to see where he'll pick up any list votes from now.

Dreadful that's how reductive this is.  Also probably right.

Think he can keep his head high imo.

I support Sturgeon all the way too.

[jamamafegan]

Given that it appears he has chosen to side with the baddies on the Sturgeon committee, it's hard to see where he'll pick up any list votes from now.

Had he said anything tonight following the result?

[Caledonian1]

35 minutes ago, Pato said:

mostly just annoyed at whoever leaked the complainants testimony to the times:

 

Ok then Andy so who leaked it to the press - you must have an inkling having spent lots of time with these people over the past couple of months - ruling yourself out leaves only four suspects on the Unionist side- Jabba stated last night that it "absolutely" wasn' her.  I really would love to see an inquiry / investigation into this

[KingRocketman II]

4 minutes ago, Caledonian1 said:

Ok then Andy so who leaked it to the press - you must have an inkling having spent lots of time with these people over the past couple of months - ruling yourself out leaves only four suspects on the Unionist side- Jabba stated last night that it "absolutely" wasn' her.  I really would love to see an inquiry / investigation into this

I don't think Mitchell is capable of leaking something effectively - she would feck that up. Alex CH seems a bit of a snake but given it was The Times it was more likely to be Fraser. I don't think Baillie did it in view of her stonewall denial but then again she could have instructed someone to do it and passed details on to a lackey......

[NotThePars]

1 hour ago, Caledonian1 said:

Ok then Andy so who leaked it to the press - you must have an inkling having spent lots of time with these people over the past couple of months - ruling yourself out leaves only four suspects on the Unionist side- Jabba stated last night that it "absolutely" wasn' her.  I really would love to see an inquiry / investigation into this

In fairness to him I don't think it does any favours for Wightman to baselessly accuse another member of the committee. If he has cast-iron proof of who's been leaking like a sieve then batter in but otherwise it would go against his general demeanour so far to just throw out suspicions.

[GordonS]

2 hours ago, NotThePars said:

In fairness to him I don't think it does any favours for Wightman to baselessly accuse another member of the committee. If he has cast-iron proof of who's been leaking like a sieve then batter in but otherwise it would go against his general demeanour so far to just throw out suspicions.

Yup, there's no reason to think he knows who leaked it any more than the rest of us.

There's an assumption that it was one of the four other opposition MSPs on the committee and while that obviously seems to be true, it's always worth bearing in mind that there are clerks who would have seen the report (if they didn't actually write it, which is normally the case). No reason to think they leaked anything of course, but just worth bearing in mind that it doesn't have to be a committee member.

I'm more disappointed that Wightman voted for this report as it is, because some of the contents are berserk, especially the allegation that Sturgeon must have known Salmond was a wrong 'un. This is classic victim blaming, like when women get battered by their husbands and dribbling shitgibbons say "you must have known he was like that when you married him."

[Jim McLean's Ghost]

Abstained. What a shitebag.

[NotThePars]

I don't think I have a problem with the committee members who believe she misled parliament or whatever abstaining on this.