Keppel is to build a semi-submersible drilling rig for dedicated Caspian service utilising local resources.
The Far East group’s subsidiaries Caspian Rigbuilders and Caspian Shipyard Company (CSC) will carry out the construction work.
The client is Caspian Drilling Company Ltd, a subsidiary of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR).
The price tag, including owner-furnished equipment, will come in around $800million.
The rig is scheduled for delivery in Q4 2016, the rig will be built to Keppel FELS’ proprietary DSS 38M design, but which has been customised for the Caspian Sea’s harsh environment condition.
The DSS38M is designed for a drilling depth to 12,192m (40,000ft) and operations in 1,000m water depth.
To meet the customer’s requirements, the rig will be outfitted to include an 800m self-contained eight-point mooring system designed to meet the high wind speeds that can be encountered in the Caspian.
The pontoons (submerged hulls) have been designed for the rig to transit through channels and will have a shallow draft of less than 7m.
Keppel’s yard in Azerbaijan, CSC, will carry out the fabrication, integration, testing and commissioning of the rig while its joint-venture yard with SOCAR, Baku Shipyard, will undertake part of the fabrication of the pontoons and columns.
Keppel FELS will provide engineering, procurement and technical support.
Jointly developed and owned by Keppel’s Deepwater Technology Group and Marine Structure Consultants, the DSS 38M design developed for the Caspian is an enhancement of units of the same basic design operating in Brazil.
CSC is the most established yard in Azerbaijan and has a track record of completing rigs for the Caspian, having delivered the first semi-submersible (the DSS 20 class Maersk Explorer, renamed the Heydar Aliyev); a jack-up (Transocean’s Trident 20 rig), and an ice-class floating storage and offloading (FSO) vessel built in-country.
The FSO was built in collaboration with its sister yards in Singapore which fabricated modules that were then shipped through the narrow Volga-Don Canal for completion at CSC.