Three ultradeepwater drillships on order

Construction of drillships for use in ultradeepwater is accelerating.

Global Marine Inc. (Glomar) and a joint venture of Conoco Inc. and R&B Falcon Corp. each have one such drillship under construction. And Glomar recently received its second order for a ship of this type, this time from Exxon Exploration Co. Glomar's first order was from BHP Petroleum Pty. Ltd.

This photo [11,741 bytes] shows the first Glomar 456 Class drillship under construction at Belfast's Harland & Wolff shipyard. The dynamically positioned drillship will be rated to water depths of 12,000 ft. It will include a horizontal/vertical pipe-handling system that will enable it to drill while making up casing strings or bottom-hole assemblies. The ship will have 130,000 bbl of crude oil storage capacity, dual subsea-tree handling capability, independent mud and brine systems, and enough space for well-testing equipment. Glomar's investment is pegged at more than $300 million. Meanwhile, Exxon has signed a 3-year deepwater drilling contract with Global Marine, causing the service firm to build a second Glomar 456 Class drillship. Global has an option to build this ship at the same yard. The ship under contract to Exxon will be rated to 8,000 ft of water. Exxon has the option to reduce the contract length to 2 years if it does so by the end of June. The contract will generate income of about $208 million for Global Marine.

The drillship Conoco is building, shown during installation of its 198-ft derrick in the two photos at right, (photo 1 [19,175 bytes]photo 2 [15,734 bytes]) will be rated to work in 10,000 ft of water. This ship will be owned by a 50-50 joint venture of Conoco and R&B Falcon. The ship will begin work for Conoco near yearend in the Gulf of Mexico. The vessel is 80% complete and is expected to be ready to start sea trials in August, as planned. Samsung Heavy Industries Ltd. is building the vessel at Koje Island, South Korea.