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Petrobras adopts Frog-6 for personnel transfer

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Hydrocarbon Engineering,


Reflex Marine has supplied two six-person FROGs to Brazil’s national operator Petrobras.

The sale follows Reflex Marine’s certification by Brazil’s Directoria de Portos e Costas (DPC) and will place Petrobras as leading the way in improving the safety of offshore operations in the region.

The FROGs will come into service in North-East Brazil in early 2015. Petrobras personnel will be fully trained using the six person FROG-6 devices by Reflex Marine’s Brazilian partner Sparrows BSM in Macaé. Local operational support will also be provided, including the supply of spare parts as well as well as inspection and maintenance.

Carol Richards, Reflex Marine’s sales manager for Brazil, said: “We believe that this sale is a significant step for Brazil’s offshore oil and gas industry. Petrobras will use the same system for the safe crane transfer of personnel as other operators working in deep and ultra-deep waters worldwide. Reflex Marine and our Brazilian partners SparrowsBSM are committed to supporting Petrobras in adoption of the safest personnel transfer device on the market.“

The FROG-6 has been developed to provide extensive protection from all the major risks of personnel transfer. Tests witnessed by the DPC confirmed that the product met all legal and safety requirements. The tests included:

 

  • Immersion to demonstrate that when a fully loaded unit is in water passengers heads will remain above the surface; secondly, that the unit will not lose its floating capability for a period of at least five minutes; and thirdly, if a unit is completely inverted, it will self-right.
  • A load test was conducted to demonstrate that no permanent deformations would occur as a result of the overloading.
  • A vertical impact test consisted of impacting a fully loaded unit into the ground at a speed of four ms-1 in order to demonstrate that no harm will be imparted to its occupants and that the unit will not undergo deformations that will prevent it being hoisted for five minutes after the impact.
  • A side impact test consisted of impacting a fully loaded unit at a speed of two ms-1 into an object in order to demonstrate that no harm was imparted to its occupants and that the unit did not undergo deformations that prevented it being hoisted for five minutes after the impact.
  • An audit of the Quality Management System (QMS) was carried out according to the standard ISO 9001:2008.

 

Reflex Marine’s immaculate safety record is maintained with more than 800 units performing more than one million crew transfers annually in 54 countries.


Adapted from a press release by David Bizley

Read the article online at: https://www.hydrocarbonengineering.com/product-news/09122014/petrobras-adopts-frog-6-for-personnel-transfer/

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