UK-based hydraulic cutters and systems specialist, Allspeeds – the designer and manufacturer of the Webtool range of high performance hydraulic cutters and systems – has supplied an integrated guillotine cutter to offshore engineering services company, Flexlife, as part of a North Sea platform decommissioning project.
The application involves passing a hose though 2-inch pipework into a jacket leg that had previously been filled with a plugging material. This material is cleared using a corrosive gel breaker fluid. Once completed, the end of the hose is cut-off, and the rest of the hose retrieved.
The double-acting Webtool guillotine cutter is specially designed to resist the corrosive fluid within the hose; cutter body and pipework flanged connections are fully sealed to ensure containment of the fluid. The integrated cutter fully contains any spilt fluid and is capable of being left in a 25-year abandonment, without seeping any of the hazardous media.