Lifting Frames – Northern Cyprus Water Supply

Square and buoy frames for installing submerged buoys at 280m depth

Between mainland Turkey and the island of Cyprus, a water pipeline was constructed to secure freshwater supply to the island. Due to the depth of the Mediterranean Sea along the pipeline’s installation route (over 1.400m), a submerged floating pipeline was to be constructed. Therefore, submerged buoys were connected to heavy concrete anchors via cables and had to be installed at a constant depth of 280m. To accomplish this, TWD provided the design and construction of three lifting frames for the installation of the anchor/buoy assemblies.

We designed a square frame that could lower 240-ton anchors to the seabed. On top of this, we provided a buoy frame, equipped with ballast weight, that effectively lowered buoys to the target depth of 280 meters. Once in position, the buoy and anchor were hydraulically released.

Project highlights

• TWD provided fabrication services, including facilitating certification by Lloyd’s Register, arranging procurement, supervising fabrication, and organizing the load testing phase
• The whole project including fabrication assistance was delivered within a demanding time frame