A offshore gangway, affectionately known as the ‘Icemann’ has reached the 10,000 transfers milestone in Eastern Russia.
The Icemann is able to operate in extreme and cold climates and is the only system of its kind in the world.
Developed by Amplemann, it has been installed on the Stepan Makarov platform.
Built in the Netherlands, it is capable of withstanding temperatures as low as minus 28 degrees Celsius and can accommodate up to 20 people at one time.
Arnoud van Leer, senior motion control engineer with Ampelmann, said: “The Icemann was born in response to a growing demand for safe and effective transfer equipment in frontier regions. It is purpose-built to service remote and extreme cold climate oil and gas operations in areas such as non-Arctic Russia, Norway and Canada, as well as regions of the Caspian Sea. We worked closely with Sakhalin Energy over a period of two years to tailor the system to the unique requirements of the project.
“Given the remoteness of the work, it was crucial to ensure that any maintenance required to the gangway system was minimised and this was reflected in the design. Various extreme weather technologies were employed in the design of the Icemann, making it the most high performance gangway system that has ever been built from an operations and conditions point of view.”
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