Cianbro Corp. is leasing part of Pier 2 on the Portland waterfront to complete the construction of two oil rigs. City officials beamed as Jeff Monroe, Portland’s Transportation and Waterfront Director, announced March 5 that the company would lease the property for up to two years, paying rent of $1 million a year.
The semi-submersible rigs are designed for oil exploration in warm ocean waters as deep as 10,000 feet. Officials said the rigs are slated for deployment off Brazil’s coast. Currently the rigs are in Texas, two-thirds completed, including most of the large structural elements.
Cianbro will be taking over from a contractor that went out of business. Company officials expect the rigs to arrive on the Portland waterfront in May or June.
The first phase of Cianbro’s work as general contractor will be to join the structural elements of pontoons, deck box and columns.
Next, the company will install the mechanical elements, primarily in the deck box. “This is a tremendous amount of work – pumps, motors, pipes, wiring,” said Monroe. “For example, the project will use over one million feet of wire.” Cianbro will install the navigation and propulsion systems as well as all on-board systems. The work will extend through the commissioning of the rigs.
Peter Vigue, President and CEO of Cianbro, said the project will employ about 800 workers, who will expend 1.5 million work-hours to complete the rigs.
“We are so grateful for the support given us by city officials,” he said. “Portland is like no other community.” The owner of the rigs and Cianbro are completing the details of the contract. Vigue expects the contract to be ready in a few weeks. The owners of the rigs will be announced then.
Portland’s City Council must approve of the lease after it goes to the Council’s Community Development Committee. Mayor Karen Geraghty left little doubt that the project would be approved, pointing out that the income is sorely needed. She applauded the lease calling it a “good example of bringing work to Portland’s working waterfront without needing to change zoning laws.”
Bath Iron Works (BIW) occupied Pier 2 for over 20 years, repairing and completing ships. Last fall it consolidated its work in Bath and turned over the Portland site to the city.
The city has a final payment, including interest, of over $700,000 on the 20 year bond it issued to help BIW develop a repair facility here. While BIW employed up to 1,200 workers at the yard, it did not become as big an economic engine as the city had hoped.
In the late fall, Portland City Council approved the plan to combine facilities for all passenger ships in an area that included most of the former BIW site. The Cianbro lease will not interrupt work on this project, which will be moving through its permitting and design phases.
Visiting cruise ships and the SCOTIA PRINCE, the ferry to Yarmouth, N.S., will continue to use the east side of the State of Maine Pier (Pier 1). Currently spending the winter at Pier 1, the SCOTIA PRINCE is scheduled to be used in the Florida or Caribbean next winter.
The Cianbro lease comes with the blessing of its neighbors. Will Gorham, head of the Munjoy Hill Neighborhood Association, “we’re very excited that it will be maintained as a marine industrial site.” Gorham said that the Association had few complaints about BIW’s tenure there.
The city and Cianbro have dealt with concerns about traffic with a plan to bus most workers in from an outside parking lot. The current parking program for islanders will remain. Noise is expected to be minimal, since most of the work will be inside the rigs. Lighting for the around-the-clock project will be aimed downward.
“As a presence on the working waterfront for 35 years,” said Vigue, “we understand our responsibilities to our neighbors and to our workers.”
Founded in 1949, Cianbro is Maine-based and has regional offices in Baltimore, MD, Bloomfield, CT, and Portland and Pittsfield, Maine. Cianbro, which is employee owned, is proud of its safety record.
About 50 percent of the Cianbro crew that will work on the rigs already lives in the Portland area. The company will bring in employees from other locations as well as recruit locally. The job will require electricians, instrument technicians, pipe fitters, welders, riggers, fabricators, millwrights, computer technicians and mechanics.
At a height of 285 feet, the rigs will become temporary landmarks on the Portland waterfront. The length of the underwater pontoons is 249 feet, and their overall breadth is 179 feet. They draw just over 29 feet when underway. When preparing for bad weather, they will be able to adjust their draft to 55 feet. Each rig accommodates a crew of 80.
The project, which Cianbro developed in the last several months, “is a very challenging, different project for us,” said Vigue. “The success of this project reminds us how we can overcome the challenges of economically difficult times,” he said.