A major improvement project at Homer’s Deepwater Dock is forcing Buccaneer Energy to move its jack-up rig Endeavor out of the harbor. But the company will now have a little extra time to move the rig.
The original deadline to move the Endeavor rig was March 20th but Homer Harbormaster Bryan Hawkins says that deadline has now been moved back by a week.
“We did agree to allow them to stay there until (March) 26th and that was based on our construction project and the arrival of our materials,” said Hawkins.
Hawkins says the crew that is working on the Endeavor is still waiting for some equipment to arrive, including a large boom for one of the rig’s cranes.
The city, too, is waiting on equipment before it can begin a major fender replacement project at the Deepwater Dock.
Hawkins said the pilings for the project have been installed but the city is still waiting on shipment of the new dock fenders. The fenders are quite enormous, at 45-feet long by 22-feet wide. They are being shipped to Seward from China, says Hawkins, and will then be barged to Homer from there. Jay Brandt Construction of Homer won the contract to do the work, which Hawkins says should take about a month.
Hawkins says before the job can be completed, the Endeavor must be moved away from the dock.
“The crews can do quite a bit of the work while the rig is there but there’s some work that is going to (force) it to pull away,” he said.
Hawkins says the repair shouldn’t disrupt the normal schedule of the Deepwater Dock, which gets pretty busy once the summer fishing season gets into full swing.
He says the Endeavor rig will need at least two tugs to move it away from the Deepwater Dock. As of Friday, no tugs were available at the harbor.
Buccaneer spokesperson Jay Morakis said in an email message that the company had received a necessary certification from the American Bureau of Shipping and is expecting to receive a Coast Guard inspection of the Endeavour sometime later this week. If that happens on schedule, he expects the Endeavor jack-up rig to move to the Cosmopolitan Unit near Anchor Point, where it expects to drill later this year.
