SOFEC Inc.

“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 SOFEC INC .