Timely Innovation Gives Lift to Offshore Platforms

Bottom Feeder was developed in 18 months to recover topsides sunk as deep as 400 ft by Gulf of Mexico’s 2005 hurricanes.

The Bottom Feeder isn’t Jon Khachaturian’s single most important “big idea.” Rather, it’s one in a progression of innovations and inventions that Khachaturian has developed since he founded his company, Versabar, on one of those innovations a reusable spreader bar for lifts 25 years ago.

Versabar Bottom Feeder raised six topsides last year and has contracts for up to 12 more.

But to the oil and gas industry, the Bottom Feeder, which can lift the entire topside of an oil platform from the bottom of the Gulf in an hour, might be one of Khachaturian’s most important developments because of the critical timeframe in which he developed it.

Within 18 months of the 2005 hurricanes that flooded New Orleans and devastated the Gulf of Mexico’s offshore oil industry, he had turned a back-of-the-envelope sketch into a multimillion-dollar lifting system capable of lifting up to 1,800 tons from the muddy seafloor.

Before the Bottom Feeder, there was not any simple way to remove the 124 topsides, which were ripped off their jackets by the storms’ winds and waves and sank, from the Gulf’s floor. The U.S. Minerals Management Service requires that most of the topsides be removed. Derrick barges are not stable enough to do the job, and without a piece of equipment, divers and remotely operated submarines would have to cut the topsides apart piece by piece, a time-consuming and expensive operation, says Ian Todd, project manager for the Bottom Feeder.

Multimedia  View Award of Excellence Luncheon and Acceptance Speech of Jon Khachaturian  April 3, 2008

Simple but Not Obvious

The Bottom Feeder costs half as much as any of the other options that Versabar considered, Khachaturian says, adding that its design is simple but not obvious.

The equipment consists of two sets of 110-ft-tall trusses mounted on two, 250-ft-long, 72-ft-wide barges. A bidirectional universal joint on one leg of each truss allows the barges to move independently in an “X” and “Y” direction, rather than as a rigid piece. Blocks suspended from the top of the connected trusses can be operated separately or in various combinations to lift one corner of a sunken topside at a time, minimizing the suction effect of the seabed mud. The Bottom Feeder can reach depths to 400 ft .

Last summer, the Bottom Feeder lifted six topsides, and Houston-based Versabar has contracts to remove 10 to 12 more this year. After 2008, the equipment will be used to decommission or move offshore platforms.

“It’s been a tremendous innovation for the post-storm removals,” says Steve Bech, project manager in the platform removal group for Chevron. “It’s uniquely suited for that because there’s enough stability.” Chevron used the Bottom Feeder to move three platform topsides last summer and has more lifts scheduled for this summer.

That Khachaturian developed the Bottom Feeder is only part of the story. The idea may have never taken off if oil companies didn’t know and trust him.

“He has a long history with his innovative ideas,” Bech says. Todd, who worked for Shell before moving to Versabar 18 months ago, agrees. “He’s developed a reputation over the years and has a good track record and people are willing to trust him,” he says.

And it likely won’t be the last time that the industry turns to Khachaturian for a new idea. He’s already working on his next innovation, a multispar deepwater platform.

“He has a strange way of thinking, but he seems to get it right,” Todd says. “He has another four or five ideas in the pipeline that are ready to market and try out.”

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PODCAST: Jon Khachaturian: Removing the unknown from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico