CIMC Makes Progress on Arctic Rig
On 19th January 2015, North Dragon, the North Sea semi-submersible drilling rig built by CIMC Raffles for North Sea Rigs AS, successfully assembled in Yantai Shipyard. It is the first semi-submersible drilling rig having the capability of operating in the Arctic area in China.
North Dragon is designed to operate in water depths of 500 meters, up to 1,200 meters and drill to depths of 8,000 meters. It is equipped with Rolls & Royce power system, Kongsberg DP3 dynamic positioning system, Siemens (SIEMENS.NS) electronic control system and NOV drilling system. Drilling section applies offline stand building system, which can connect three Drill-pipes or risers together at the same time of Drilling works going on, and adopts Horizontal automatic Hydraracker design, promoting the drilling efficiency 15%.
Based on GM4-D design, CIMC Raffles completes the basic design together with Global Maritime, having 80% Intellectual Property Rights. Focused on situations of Norwegian North Sea and Balents Sea, North Dragon can resist raging tempest in North Sea. Concurrently, based on experience of four delivered GM series North Sea semi-submersible drilling rigs of CIMC Raffles and operating performance of three semi-submersible units continuously working in Norwegian North Sea since 2011.
Through improving operation draft and increasing static air gap of unit, heave motion response amplitude of unit has been reduced; the unit motion performance has been obviously improved and greatly increased uptime of operation.
It is Chinese initial design for ice class deep-water units, realizing operation in -25℃ harsh environment. All the external category I safety equipment, include escape walkway, ladder and lifeboat etc. are installated anti-icing or shelter. Above main deck all ESD1 is not off the open-air fan for explosion-proof type, Drilling large area installation wind wall.
The owner, Mr. Stephen Adshead states “The North Dragon reflects nearly 10 years of working on the design of harsh environment semi-submersible rigs that target the North Sea and incorporates the lessons learned from one project to the next. The rig is the latest generation in a long list of rigs which CIMC Raffles has built successfully. Oil companies working in the North Sea will continue to develop fields and look at maximizing what can be extracted. The rig is designed to be capable of many tasks and perform complex work operations. This makes them attractive to Oil Companies and other operators.”
Comprehension of the basic design increases construction standards. In the basic design phase of North Dragon, CIMC Raffles has already considered construction facilities and characteristics, optimizing division of bulkheads, utilization of curved plates, special welding areas, continuation philosophy of blocks, enhancing construction quality. On the basis of bulk delivery of semi-submersible units, the project planning management of North Dragon has been refined. Real-time monitoring, forecasting and revising can be realized by software system. Strictly complied with Norsok standards, North Dragon is highly praised by DNV after on-site NDT inspection. “General NDT department had made of good control of project North Dragon, all NDT operators and NDTsub-contractors who invovled the project had done a very good job!”
The Arctic Zone owns rich oil and gas resources. According to United States Geological Survey, 13% oil and 30% gas are not deployed. Furthermore, the Balents Sea is the extension of Norwegian North Sea to the Arctic Circle, which is considered as the concentration of arctic oil and gas exploitation. After the assemblage, North Dragon is planned to be delivered in December 2015. Beacon Atlantic, the second GM4-D rig of the same series, is currently under construction. While the contract of Beacon Pacific, the third rig, comes into effect. As planned, they will be delivered in December 2016 and December 2017 separately. All these three rigs can be operated in Balents Sea.
