OPI ACTIVATES UPGRADED DERRICK/PIPELAY UNIT

OPI International Inc., Houston, has completed sea trials and reactivated DLB 423, the only semisubmersible derrick/pipelay barge operating in the Gulf of Mexico. Formerly Choctaw 11, the barge is one of 23 vessels OPI acquired from Brown & Root in 1990. DLB 423 is working for Exxon Co. U.S.A. on a deepwater assignment in the Mississippi Canyon area of the gulf It's laying a 51 1/2 mile, 20 in line from Exxon's Alabaster platform in Mississippi Canyon Block 397 to a shallow water point

Sept. 9, 1991

OPI International Inc., Houston, has completed sea trials and reactivated DLB 423, the only semisubmersible derrick/pipelay barge operating in the Gulf of Mexico.

Formerly Choctaw 11, the barge is one of 23 vessels OPI acquired from Brown & Root in 1990.

DLB 423 is working for Exxon Co. U.S.A. on a deepwater assignment in the Mississippi Canyon area of the gulf It's laying a 51 1/2 mile, 20 in line from Exxon's Alabaster platform in Mississippi Canyon Block 397 to a shallow water point near Venice, La.

OPI said maximum water depth of 1,229 ft in the project is a record for large diameter line in the Western Hemisphere, based on information from Offshore Data Services.

OPI spent 8 months and several million dollars upgrading the barge at its Orange, Tex., yard.

OPI said the barge's semisubmersible hull affords excellent seakeeping ability, allowing the unit to work during Gulf of Mexico winters and in the severe environment of the North Sea.