Kiewit Offshore Services announced the building of a state-of-the-art offshore fabrication facility in Ingleside in Texas. The 400-acre property - one of the largest in the Gulf of Mexico - will include 3,600 feet of bulkhead, built for heavy-loading conditions. With 45-foot water depth along the bulkhead, the KOS yard will be capable of handling complex integration activities for tension leg platforms (TLP) and floating production/storage and offloading (FPSO) units.

Increased drilling activity both on the Gulf of Mexico shelf and in deepwater worldwide has encouraged KOS to build the new facility and pursue the anticipated demand for offshore fabrication, says KOS President, Myron Rodrigue. The new KOS facility has been designed from the ground up to deliver quality fabrication services. Using advanced automation, streamlined layouts and covered assembly buildings, the yard is designed for high productivity, which represents potential schedule reductions to projects, says Rodrigue. “KOS is prepared to accommodate a wide range of offshore structures, from conventional fixed platforms to large, complex deepwater floating solutions,” he added.

The KOS yard also offers customers more than a quarter million square feet of covered work space, including four contiguous bays, climate-controlled storage building, and automated shape-cutting and brace-cutting facilities. Major equipment, which will be on-site this summer, ready for work, includes 660-ton crawlers; material-handling equipment; and modular trailers, specially designed for moving large components.

The yard is currently under construction and will be ready to start performing fabrication services in June 2001.