For General Enquiries

Pioneer Pump Limited

Pioneer House Woolpit Road Rattlesden
Bury St Edmunds IP30 0RZ UK
Tel: +44 (0) 1449 736777 Fax: +44 (0) 1449 737322
enquiries@pioneerpump.co.uk
www.pioneerpump.co.uk
Powering performance demands
Pioneer Pumps
The Norwegian contractor Secora SA completed a
challenging project on the island of Vry, off the
coast of Norway, 130 kilometres north of the Arctic
Circle. To accommodate larger fishing vessels and
ferries, the harbour needed to be deepened.
Normally dredgers would have been used for this
task, but the basalt granite floor of the harbour at
Srlands meant that the only way is to excavate the
additional 3m depth was by drilling and blasting.
Although it was possible to drill and blast under
water, the simplest solution in this instance was to
seal off the harbour entrance and drain the harbour.
However, because of the location, the contractors
were racing against time to complete the project
before winter set in.
The Overall Project
The total project, at a value of 115 million
Norwegian krones, involved deepening Rstnesvgen
and Srlandsvgen including the approaches to
Srlandsvgen. There was some 5,000 m
3
of loose
material and 3,000 m
3
of rock to be excavated
from an area of 7,000 m
2
at Rstnesvgen. Works
at Srlandsvgen involved 170,000 m
3
of loose
material plus 150,000 m
3
of rock in an area of
approximately 130,000 m
2
.
1,200,000m
3
in 14 days
A priority was to drain the 1.2 million cubic meters
of water in just 14 days. The demand was for high
performance pumpsets that could cope with the
volumes involved, have proven reliability and were
able to meet strict environmental conditions.
Because the pumps had to be mounted on barges,
the number of pumpsets had to be kept to a
minimum and be able to run for long periods of time
between refuelling.
The original consideration was to use six 12"
submersible pumps but Pioneer Pump, working
through their Norwegian distributor, Intec Pumper,
was able to demonstrate that the high performance
efficiency of Pioneers vacuum assisted self priming
pumps meant that the work could be completed
with just two 18" pumpsets. Because of the limited
work space and refuelling considerations, this was
considered the best solution.
On being awarded the contract, Pioneer had just
nine weeks to design, build and deliver the custom
PP450 high flow pumpsets based on the Pioneer
Prime vacuum assisted self-priming pump powered
by Caterpillar C9 ACERT Tier III emission compliant
diesel engines. They were mounted on skids with
an integral fuel tank of 2000 litres, sufficient for
24-hour operation.
Successful Operation
Once a box dam had sealed the harbour entrance,
the pump barge was deployed.
With a total dynamic head (TDH) of 18 m, and a
static lift of 2.5 meters, the Pioneer pumps
maintained a daily output of 3,000 m
3
per hour per
pumpset operating at an economical 1800 rpm
through discharge piping that ran over the harbour
wall to the sea.
The Pioneer solution completed the dewatering of
the harbour in just 11 days, pumping a total volume
of water in excess of 1.4 million cubic meters or 370
million gallons allowing the main contractor to begin
excavating 3-days ahead of schedule.
Pioneer dewater North Sea
arctic harbour in two weeks
of continuous pumping
www.pioneerpump.co.uk
Picture far left Shows the sheer
size of the project involved with
moving almost one and a half million
cubic meters of water in less than
two weeks.
Picture left Shows the two
Caterpillar C9 powered pumpsets
located on the custom built barge
with 450mm pipe work and non-
return valves.
Picture left Shows the barge after
the pump job with the pumps located
at the entrance to the harbour ready
to pump out any leakages from
the dam.
The pumps are managed by a custom
design Pioneer Pump control panel
with integrated auto-start/stop
module in conjunction with GSM
remote monitoring.
Picture left Shows the Caterpillar
earth moving equipment operating
in the recently dewatered harbour
removing 320,000m
3
of material
required to deepen the harbour by
an additional 3m.
Pioneer Pump Limited, working through their Norwegian distributor, Intec Pumper, was able to demonstrate that the high performance
efficiency of Pioneers pumps meant that the work was completed with just two 18" pumpsets in 11 days.
PIONEER PUMPS