The Bibby Progress

Bibby Lines, an old and respected English shipping firm, advertises its floating hotels on barges. They call them Coastels. And they have a wonderful advertising tagline “For instant accommodation, just add water.”  But fill one of these Coastels to capacity with 1,000 workers, and you might just add some wastewater.

Chevron struggled with this problem while they negotiated to move this barge, “The Bibby Progress”, down to Escravos in Nigeria.  Without a local sewage treatment plant to receive the effluent, how could they house the workers for the  multibillion dollar natural gas processing plant project that Hyundai was building for them.

Schedules were tight and so was the budget.  Who could create such a system on such short notice, especially when there was no place to put the types of treatment systems that were appropriate to marine applications?  SludgeHammer had shown Chevron its stripes after Hurricane Katrina, and once again they turned to us. 

The SludgeHammer team headed off to Rotterdam where Bibby was doing the retrofit work. We mobilized in no time.  Local plumbing sources were located and SludgeHammers started arriving from the US.  We were surprised to see that this rather humble looking barge was topped by first class hotel accommodations.

 The work went smoothly. In less than one month our small crew had constructed a wastewater treatment facility designed for over 50,000 gallons per day. 

Then came the fun.  After the two month tow to Nigeria, the SludgeHammer crew flew in to commission the system.  We showed up in this exotic locale wearing t-shirts which warned any local kidnappers, “You don’t want us, we just fix toilets”.  And, indeed, we were left alone. Even in this remote spot the simplicity of the SludgeHammer technology made getting the facilities up and running a relatively simple project. 

Its human value fully sunk in when we saw the Chevron crew, who had been living ashore, come aboard. Like kids in a candy store, they picked out their staterooms and marveled at the amenities.  It’s nice to have satisfied customers.