SOFEC Inc.
Mooring solution specialists
WW W . S OFEC. COM
SOFEC Inc.
Mooring solution specialists
S
OFEC Inc. is a recognized leader in the design, engineering, and fabrication
of mooring systems for floating oil and gas production facilities and marine
terminals in the midstream sector of the industry, which is responsible for
the movement and transportation of these resources. SOFEC, which stands for
Specialized Offshore Facilities & Engineered Components, began operations in
1972 when the company was licensed by Exxon to design and supply a Single
Anchor Leg Mooring (SALM) system in deep water. This SALM system facilitated
the transfer of liquid cargoes from onshore to offshore, or from offshore to
onshore, by allowing the system to rotate, or “weathervane,” as waves, current,
and winds change.
AT A GLANCE
SOFEC INC.
WHAT: A leader in Engineering and Construction of Single Point Mooring
Systems
WHERE: Houston, Texas
WEBSITE: [Link]
S OF E C I N C .
“The idea is to get these big tankers to align
with their bow into the waves. When weather
changes, they’re allowed to rotate with the
weather and are still able to transfer their
liquid cargo,” explains Company Vice President
of Sales and Marketing, David Waronoff. “Our
main technology is single-point moorings, which
allow the systems to weathervane. It reduces the
environmental loads on the system and it allows
cargo operations to be maintained in fairly
significant sea states.”
“These deepwater facilities allow these very
large crude carriers to come and offload or
take on cargo,” adds Chief of Technology, Arun
Duggal. “The other option is to transfer the oil to
smaller vessels and then bring those into port, or
partially load these VLCC’s in port from the jetty,
and transfer the remaining cargo offshore, which
is called ‘lightering’. Eliminating this requirement
to lighter is what drove the technology that we
started with in ’72.”
Over the ensuing years, SOFEC continued to
innovate its systems. “We moved from Single
Anchor Leg Moorings in the ‘70s to Catenary
Anchor Leg Moorings (CALM) in the ‘80s, and
that moved all of the mechanical components
and the fluid swivel from sub-sea to surface,”
says Waronoff. (A catenary anchor leg mooring
system consists of a large buoy anchored by
catenary mooring lines. The floating cargo vessel
is moored to the buoy by soft hawsers.) “The
projects that are being looked at, right now, for
the Gulf of Mexico by a handful of midstream
companies are all based on catenary anchor
leg mooring, or CALM buoys. They’re easier to
maintain, they’re less costly in operation, and
all of the mechanical components along with
the swivel that is used for fluid transfer are on
the surface so they can be easily inspected and
maintained if there are any issues.”
The company has grown its product line to
include a broad range of applications for
tanker-based Floating Production, Storage, and
Offloading (FPSO) systems installed in water
depths ranging from shallow to ultra-deep.
They include: Internal Disconnectable Turrets,
Internal Permanent Turrets, External Turrets,
Spread Mooring Systems, and Tower Yoke
Mooring Systems. In addition, SOFEC upped its
technological prowess by developing mooring
systems for floating LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas)
vessels, and floating re-gas mooring systems for
vessels designed to convert LNG back to natural
gas.
In 1993, SOFEC was acquired by FMC
Technologies, and in 2006, by MODEC (Mitsui
Ocean Development & Engineering Co.)
headquartered in Tokyo. SOFEC, itself, is
headquartered in Houston, Texas and has
approximately 300 employees. “We also have
an office in Singapore,” Waronoff adds. “We have
18 full-time employees and our fabrication
personnel are scattered around the globe,
depending on where it is we’re building at the
time. Right now, we have projects being built
in Singapore at Keppel, and at PJOE in Penglai,
China.”
SOF EC I N C .
“Our fabrication site team in Singapore is about talking about our combined relationship with
35 engineers, inspectors, and construction our parent company, MODEC. MODEC is an FPSO
and commissioning related staff,” Duggal owner/operator as well as a supply company.
elaborates. “In China, we probably have another SOFEC provides our moorings and fluid transfer
10 staff working at the fabrication yard. The systems to MODEC on all their FPSOs as well as
fabrication yards build all the major structural to others when not in conflict.
and piping components and integrate a number
of mechanical components that we design and “Our competitive edge for the mentioned U.S.
manufacture all over the world, as well as other Gulf of Mexico upcoming projects includes being
equipment like instrumented control systems, a U.S. company, and we are small and nimble. We
valves, winches, hydraulic power units, etc. We can provide our clients with good options; we
ship these various components to the fabrication work with them very closely in understanding
yard for integration into the system, and perform their requirements and giving them a practical
as much of the commissioning there as possible. solution. Our systems are designed to be robust,
The off-vessel mooring materials are typically and we’re very focused on HSE&Q (Health,
pre-installed in the field and once the vessel Safety, Environment, and Quality) in terms of
is hooked up offshore, the remainder of the making sure that what we put out there is going
commissioning is completed.” to last a long time, be safe to operate, is good for
the environment, and good for our clients in all
Regarding SOFEC’s competition, Waronoff says, aspects.”
“There are few companies in the world that do
what we do; less than a handful. And when we “Where we tend to be very successful is when
talk about the competitors in that space, we’re there is need to customize and optimize for a
CALM buoy remote monitoring and control
Mooring hawser tension monitoring
Subsea PLEM valve control
Pressure surge detection
Emergency shutdown .
EATON Electric Limited, Ocean Technical Systems, Oceantech House,
Station Approach, Cheam, Surrey, SM2 7AU, U.K.
T: +44 20 8643 2233
F: +44 20 8643 6444
E: sales@[Link]
W: [Link] Powering Business Worldwide
particular application,” says Duggal. “Most of takes such a long time,” Duggal notes. “It’s for a
our turret moorings have standard components very big floating LNG facility in very deep water
that we use from project to project, but the and has to be designed for typhoon conditions.
actual system is customized, based on client So, it’s a very severe environment and it’s a huge
requirements in terms of materials, functionality, vessel – much bigger than the vessels that are
and operability. Those are things that we are typically used to transport oil.”
very good at adapting to. There’s also the
customization that’s required for the particular The company is also working on a brand new,
reservoir that the facility is going on. innovative design for the more shallow waters
of the Gulf of Mexico. “This is a very large,
Waronoff adds that those delivery times disconnectable facility in about 100 feet of
generally vary between 18 and 24 months, water,” Duggal explains. “It’s a very complex FPSO
but for one extremely large project that the that’s moored to what we call a Tower Yoke
company is currently working on in Mozambique, mooring system, which is unlike a traditional
Africa, the project schedule from start to finish is mooring system that uses chains and anchors
much longer. “It’s the longest project that we’ve for the mooring legs. Because the water depth
worked on so far, but it’s a much more complex is so shallow, we use a mooring tower. Our
floating LNG mooring system.” bearing and fluid transfer system are located
at the top of that tower. We employ mechanical
“To give you a feeling for size: some of our linkages and a very heavy weight, a water filled
systems weigh three or four-hundred tons and ballast tank, to provide the mooring system’s
the one we’re doing in Mozambique is close to restoring force. This has been successfully used
8,000 tons, which is one of the reasons why it in relatively mild environments all around the
S OF E C I N C .
world and we have supplied, probably, half of the
facilities that are in operation today. There are
not many - maybe 10 or 12 total - and this will
be SOFEC’s sixth Tower Yoke Mooring System.
“What’s unique about this particular one is
that it needs to be rapidly disconnectable
and reconnectable because it’s in a hurricane
environment. It’s a very challenging project on
a tight schedule – first oil is expected in 28-30
months, and its going from concept to first use
in that time frame. A lot of the components that
we’re integrating into the design are all field-
proven, but now are being used in a slightly
different way, especially for the disconnect and
reconnect. So, it’s been a very interesting and
challenging project.”
Designing and building unique projects is
standard operating procedure for what Duggal
believes is a unique aspect of the company, itself,
i.e. the longevity of its principals. “We have a
CEO that’s been in charge for almost 20 years
and before that he was with the company for six links between people. Our management team,
or seven years in various engineering positions,” other than retirements, has been very stable
Duggal shares. “David’s been at SOFEC 27 years, and even though our ownership has changed,
and I’m in my 25th year. And there are many we’ve been able to maintain who we are as a
people like us. Our two senior construction company. I think both owners, FMC and MODEC,
managers have also been with the company over recognized that we were different from their
20 years. In a competitive market like Houston, culture, and they allowed us to maintain our
where we’re surrounded by energy companies, identity. Our long term employees are proof that
we’ve been able to retain a lot of our people those decisions were correct – we are a proud
and their knowledge. Usually, in the construction company with great employees that thrive in
industry, people move from company to company the challenges that we face in a growing and
chasing projects, but we’ve been lucky to have a technically challenging industry.”
continuous stream of projects over 25 years and
we’ve been able to have everyone still be part of
the team.
“So, I think it’s a fairly unique culture and one
of the interesting things we find is that even
the younger people we bring in are all looking
forward to being here ten plus years from now.
We’ve doubled in size over the last decade, but
we’re still small enough where everybody knows
everybody and we try to maintain these organic
PREFERRED VENDOR
n Oceantech
[Link]
Ocean Technical Systems (part of EATON Electric
Limited) have been supplying the offshore industry
since 1980 and are a leading supplier of CALM
buoy remote monitoring and control equipment,
including mooring hawser tension monitoring,
remote subsea PLEM valve control, and SIL rated
solutions for pressure surge detection and
emergency shutdown.
WW W . S OFEC. COM
[Link] A S F E AT U R E D I N
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