Operations in 4000 m Water Depth: Prestige Wreck Fuel-Recovery Project

The tanker Prestige, carrying 77 000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil, sank in 3850 m of water 240 km off the northwestern coast of Spain in November 2002. The ship broke apart, and, for several months afterward, large quantities of spilled fuel oil washed ashore in the Gallaecia region of Spain and elsewhere. Repsol YPF, although in no way connected to the vessel or its cargo, was appointed by the Spanish government to recover the fuel oil remaining in the wreck. This paper describes operations performed during the fuel-oil-recovery project, focusing mainly on deepwater and offshore operations. Innovative deepwater equipment and procedures were used in tapping into the wreck's tanks, transferring extremely viscous fuel oil into specially designed shuttles, recovering these shuttles to surface, and offloading them into a dynamically positioned floating storage and offloading (FSO) vessel.

View a Synopsis of OTC 17557.

This article, written by Technology Editor Dennis Denney, contains highlights of paper OTC 17557, "Operations in 4000-m Water Depth for the Prestige Wreck Fuel-Recovery Project," by G. Corbetta, Sonsub A/S; A. del Corral, Repsol YPF; J. Ewen, Sonsub Ltd.; and R. Páez and I. Rodríguez, Repsol YPF, prepared for the 2005 Offshore Technology Conference, Houston, 2-5 May. Copyright 2005 Offshore Technology Conference. Reproduced by permission. The paper has not been peer reviewed.

Operations in 4000 m Water Depth: Prestige Wreck Fuel-Recovery Project

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