Finnish technology group Wärtsilä and global drilling contractor Maersk Drilling have joined forces to create a 25-year thruster maintenance strategy for Maersk’s three semi-submersible rigs and four drillships.
The parties have already completed the strategy work on the D-rigs and commenced the strategy work related to V-Drillships.
Under the plan, by reducing the thruster exchange time, the deep-sea rigs and drillships will spend less time in sheltered waters for thruster maintenance. The joint strategy defines the planning procedures for scheduled maintenance as well as thruster services and equipment exchange in emergency scenarios. Frederik Smidth, CTO, Maersk Drilling, explains:
“Our fleet operates in remote locations and very demanding weather conditions, which poses a challenge to maintenance. Together with Wärtsilä, we have created a comprehensive strategy that takes into account a variety of realistic scenarios and provides detailed responses.”
Wärtsilä’s scope of supply includes spare thrusters, and long-term storage maintenance. Maersk Drilling semi-submersible rigs ‘Maersk Developer’, ‘Maersk Discoverer’ and ‘Maersk Deliverer’ are equipped with eight LMT-FS3501 thrusters each. Four new spare thrusters will be delivered during 2018 and added to the four existing spare units. By having a full set of eight spare thrusters, it is possible to reduce the shutdown period significantly by hot swopping all eight thrusters with the spare units. This provides additional flexibility to planning shutdowns in collaboration with clients to ensure minimal impact on operations.
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