One Dead After Pier Collapses at Keppel Shipyard
The body of a worker has been recovered from the water after a pier collapsed underneath a crane at the Keppel Shipyard in the Tuas area of Singapore earlier this week.
On Monday, a rail-mounted crane went into the water when a pier collapsed adjacent to the newly-built FPSO Prosperity, currently under construction for SBM Offshore. Photos from the scene show that the crane's base went vertically down into the water without toppling, and the boom draped over the top of the FPSO's superstructure.
The affected pier and rail-mounted crane can be seen in an earlier video of the vessel's topsides installation process.
Several workers sustained minor injuries in the collapse, and two went into the water. One was rescued shortly after, but one man was left missing. The remains of the second indivudual, a Bangladeshi national employed by a Singapore-based subcontractor, were recovered Wednesday by the Singapore Civil Defence Force after an extended search.
Keppel Shipyard confirmed the accident in a brief statement. “We can confirm that an incident occurred yesterday at Keppel Shipyard in Tuas where a section of the quayside gave way causing two workers to fall into the sea and a crane to tilt to the side," the yard said. In an update Wednesday, it expressed its condolences to the family of the deceased and added that it is cooperating fully with an ongoing investigation into the circumstances of the casualty.
Singapore's Ministry of Manpower has issued a stop-work order for the affected pier and is leading an inquiry into the cause of the collapse.
The effect on the schedule for deployment of the FPSO Prosperity is not yet known. The vessel left drydock in March and was undergoing fitting-out for its topsides; when completed, it is headed for ExxonMobil's marquee offshore development program off the coast of Guyana. If all goes to schedule, it should begin production at the Payara field in 2024.
The pier collapse was the second fatal accident at the Keppel yard this year. In March, two workers were killed after a structure on a vessel's topsides collapsed, dropping them onto the pier below.