Keppel on Track to Deliver Rig for Caspian Drilling
Keppel Offshore & Marine Ltd (Keppel O&M) through its subsidiary in Azerbaijan, Caspian Shipyard Company (CSC), is on track to deliver a semisubmersible drilling rig to Caspian Drilling Company Ltd, a subsidiary of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR).
The rig was named Heydar Aliyev at a ceremony in Azerbaijan today by the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev.
Built to Keppel FELS' proprietary DSSTM 38M design, the rig has been customized for the Caspian Sea's harsh environment condition. It is the first modern semisubmersible to be almost completely built in Azerbaijan.
CSC undertook the fabrication, integration, testing and commissioning of the rig while its sister yard, Baku Shipyard (a joint-venture yard between Keppel and SOCAR), fabricated the pontoons. In Singapore, besides providing the engineering, procurement and technical support, Keppel FELS also fabricated the columns and bracings which were shipped to Baku through the narrow Volga Don canal.
Equipped with well control piping, BOP handling and foundations rated for 20,000 PSI, the DSSTM 38M will be the first shallow water semisubmersible to have the capabilities to perform drilling in expanded areas of operation in the oil fields of Azerbaijan.
It is able to work at a drilling depth of up to 40,000ft and operations in 1000m water depth. Designed to be fully moored, the rig will be able to stay in position via an 8 point wire rope mooring system which is capable of self-contained mooring up to the full range of the water depths of the Caspian Sea.
Jointly developed and owned by Keppel's Deepwater Technology Group and GustoMSC, the DSSTM 38M design is an enhanced design of the successful DSSTM 38 rigs that are operating in Brazil.
CSC is the an established yard and has a track record of completing rigs for the Caspian Sea, having delivered the first semisubmersible (the DSSTM 20 Maersk Explorer), the first jackup rig (Transocean's Trident 20 jackup rig) and the first ice-class Floating Storage and Offloading (FSO) vessel built in-country. These projects were done 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.
