Maersk Drilling’s ultra-harsh environment jack-up Maersk Innovator is now heading for operation at the Buzzard field in the Central North Sea following a six-week yard stay at Invergordon, during which main contractor Semco Maritime has extended the cantilever alongside various other maintenance and updating projects.
Semco Maritime’s main work scope was to extend the cantilever 5 meters in order to allow the rig a larger drilling envelope. The highly complex job involved fabricating and installing beams with flanges up to 100 mm and very high tensile 690 Z grade material requiring special weld procedures, Neil Robertson, Operations Manager at Semco Maritime, Invergordon, explains.
The anchoring at Invergordon’s deep water quay Queens Dock enabled access to the rig from three sides allowing concurrent installation of Helideck C & H lights, replacement of 16” sea water pipe work, and various other maintenance and updating projects all over the rig from spud cans to the crown.
Semco Maritime has spent over 70,000 man hours on the project, said Senior Vice President Lars Skov, head of Rig Projects.
"It is one of the most intensive and at the same time complex operations we have completed to date when considering the tight time frame in which the rig was in port. It has required a lot of planning and dedicated collaboration, and it only makes delivery on time all the more satisfactory," Skov said.
End-2017, Maersk Drilling was awarded a contract by Nexen Petroleum for the drilling of three wells and options for nine additional wells at U.K.’s largest producing oil field, the Buzzard field in the Central North Sea.
“The extension of the cantilever on Maersk Innovator will allow us to reach all the well slots on the North side of the Buzzard platform from a single rig position,” says Martin Theodorsen, Head of North Sea Region in Commercial with Maersk Drilling. “This means no additional rig moves are required and allows Nexen great flexibility in terms of which wells to access, while at the same time enabling a fast switch between the wells on the Buzzard platform.”