In their short lifetime, Ballyvesey Recycling have been involved in some strange projects, from receiving Armoured Personnel Carriers into the yard, to placing pink stretch limousines with bikes on the roof on the recent Giro D’Italia route.
But surely one of the strangest assignments involved working on a huge oil rig that was recently in situ at Harland & Wolff shipyard for a £100 million refurbishment. The oil rig named The Blackford Dolphin, weighing a total of 48,000 Tons, arrived in Belfast in November 2013 for a six week refurbishment but when they got it out of the water they discovered a lot more work was involved in getting it shipshape again to return to the oil fields off the coast of Brazil where it is hired at the cost of £330,000 per day. Consequently it was in Belfast’s Dry Dock for 6 months.
To secure the rig to the sea bed, 1500 Tons of steel anchor chain attached to 8 massive anchors is fitted inside the 8 legs of the rig. This huge chain has to be taken off the rig every 5 years for inspection by Health& Safety as well as Insurance personnel. The only practical method of handling this chain on the dockside is with a mobile scrap handler. Enter Ballyvesey Recycling with one of their Terex TM 350s and a very competent operator in the form of Joseph Monaghan.
Strict deadlines had to be met to ensure there was not a moment’s delay in getting the chain back onto the rig to coincide with the tides and the constraints of available shipping lanes in busy Belfast Port. Working through the night the task was carried out to perfection and another successful job was achieved by Ballyvesey Recycling.
What next?
