first impressions from Stavanger

Here are some first phonecam snaps and impressions from Stavanger where I spent a few weeks recently to study the stress level (really!) in small critters living under the ice (click this link to a previous post if you want to know how they look like). It turned out my stress level was a lot higher than theirs, but then I could not blame them. They had been stored on liquid nitrogen first and later at about -80°C so they were pretty cool about the whole procedure *cheesy sitcom laugh* while I was working up a sweat jumping around between the different analysers, homogenisers, autosamplers, microplate readers, multipipette robots etc.

I first thought of showing some pics of these wonders of scientific high-tech but decided against it for now. (I first have to figure out how I can in uplink some mpeg movies that I shot of the robot systems in action).

Instead, here is a view from our lab's window on an oil rig dismantling unit.



Moored to it for some time was SAIPEM 7000, apparently the world's biggest, largest, heaviest-lifting floating crane rig, sporting twin cranes capable of 7000 tons each (hence the lyrical name) as well as a number of smaller "feeder" cranes to shuffle smaller things around on deck. It moved in and out of the fjord at astonishing speed (I guess some 6-8 knots) and "swerved" sharply to lay to the pier without any tug assistance, which makes sense if you have to move in close to large offshore constructions to take them down. And then it started to unload parts of a platform it had been taking apart some place out in the oil fields onto the large pier in front of the lab. Like a giant "grown-up boy's dream toy" come true!

Here is another shot:



If you piched your eyes, you could see small ant-like creatures crawling around on it, the deck crew. The cranes swung around more or less simultaneously to avoid too much veering on the deck, since they were "riding high" i.e. had not flooded the huge tanks in their legs as they would do once they were stationary and anchored "in the fields". With empty tanks the rig has a lot more freeboard i.e. a lot less bulk to push through the water when "sailing".

So even though Stavanger really is just a sleepy little town loosely strewn over a few islands and along the fjord and sounds, which reportedly have some of the oldest (known) human settlements of Scandinavia, it also happened to be situated closest to the largest (known) oil reserves of western Europe.

And by the way: parts of that pier the SAIPEM 7000 was moored to originate from the BRENT SPAR (ring a bell?), i.e. its concrete legs were modified into a pier extension while the metal superstructure was cut into scrap iron on the flat expanse between the lab and the fjord. I would love to dig up pictures of the thing, apparently the rig was tugged around in "Byfjorden" for some time while the authorities were still contemplating to sink it some place convenient to avoid the costly deconstruction.