Maersk Drilling’s fourth XL Enhanced ultra harsh environment jack-up was named Friday morning at a ceremony held at the Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering (DSME) shipyard in South Korea. Mrs. Bente Norheim, wife of Jan Norheim, Managing Director of BP Norge, honoured Maersk Drilling by naming the rig Maersk Invincible.
Maersk Invincible is the fourth and final rig in a series of four ultra harsh environment jack-up rigs to enter Maersk Drilling’s fleet. The four jack-up rigs represent a total investment of USD 2.6bn. The first three jack-up rigs have been delivered from the Keppel FELS shipyard, while the Maersk Invincible will be delivered from DSME later in 2016.
After delivery from the yard, Maersk Invincible will mobilise to the North Sea and commence a five year firm contract with BP Norge for plug and abandonment work on the Valhall field in the Norwegian North Sea. The estimated contract value for the firm contract is USD 812 million, including mobilisation from South Korea to Norway, but excluding cost escalation.
“With the naming of our fourth XLE jack-up, we are nearing the end of a newbuilding era for Maersk Drilling. Maersk Invincible will be the final XLE rig to enter our fleet. These highly advanced drilling rigs enable us to provide safe and efficient drilling operations to our customers on the Norwegian market and with the addition of Maersk Invincible, we will further strengthen our market leading position in Norway,” says Claus V. Hemmingsen, CEO of Maersk Drilling and Vice CEO of the Maersk Group, and continues:
“We look forward to working closely together with BP Norge on the Valhall field. I am confident that Maersk Invincible will live up to her name when she commences operation.”
With a leg length of 206.8 m (678 ft) those rigs jack-up rigs are designed for year round operation in the North Sea, in water depths up to 150 m (492 ft).Uptime and drilling efficiency are maximised through dual pipe handling. While one string is working in the well bore, a second string of e.g. casing, drill pipe or bottom hole assembly can be assembled/disassembled and stored in the set-back area, ready for subsequent transfer for use in the well bore thus reducing the non-productive time.
The drill floor features Multi Machine Control – a fully remote operated pipe handling system allowing all standard operations such as stand building and tripping to be conducted without personnel on the drill floor thus ensuring a high level of consistency across crews and an improved efficiency.
Source & Image credit: Maersk Drilling
