Keppel FELS Ltd has said it is to start building its CAN DO drillship design, with a 2016 completeion date. No secure contract has been secured for the vessel yet.
Keppel FELS, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Keppel Offshore & Marine Ltd (Keppel O&M), says the drillship will be a state-of-the-art deepwater exploration, development and completion drilling vessel.
Jointly developed by Keppel Offshore & Marine Technology Centre (KOMtech), the R&D arm of Keppel O&M, and its design partner GustoMSC, the CAN DO was designed to overcome the constraints of limited deck space found in most modern day drillships.
Apart from incorporating exploration drilling requirements, the design allows for the installation of third party equipment, invariably required for development and completion drilling, through the incorporation of a large functional deck space.
The drillship also has a double blowout preventer stack integrated into the design, and has a riser hold capacity meeting 12,000ft water depth, with the flexibility to store either 75ft or 90ft-long risers.
The drillship has been model tested at the MARIN facility in the Netherlands and has also obtained class approval for the basic design. A full 3D model has been created for construction purposes.
Chow Yew Yuen, CEO and CEO-Designate, Keppel O&M, said: "The newly developed design is capable of handling next generation 20K psi blowout preventers.
"While most modern drillships currently in operation were designed and built for exploration drilling, industry feedback has revealed the need for vessels capable of performing development and completion drilling in addition to exploration drilling. Since the launch of our design earlier this year, we have received very encouraging response from the market, and we have decided to start constructing the first drillship to this design. We believe the drillship meets the high functionality, safety and cost-effective requirements of the industry."