World's largest jackup delivered to Noble

Sembcorp Marine delivered the world’s largest jackup rig, the Noble Lloyd Noble, to Noble Corp. after uncertainties in the delivery date due to damage the rig endured in February.

Illustration of the Noble Lloyd Noble, from Noble Corp.

The Noble Lloyd Noble will be deployed in Statoil’s Mariner field development in the North Sea under a four-year charter arrangement, which is set to begin in mid-October 2016, according to Noble’s fleet status report.

The rig marks the seventh ultra high-specification harsh environment jackup rig successfully completed for Noble by Sembcorp, and is based on the GustoMSC CJ70 design as well as Statoil’s ‘Category J’ specifications. The jackup is also the first offshore structure of its kind to fully comply with both Norwegian and UK regulatory standards, and is uniquely suited for operation over a very large platform or in a subsea configuration, Sembcorp said.

From mid-July until mid-October, the newbuild will be in-transit to Statoil and going through acceptance testing. Work is scheduled to commence in mid-October at a dayrate of US$447,000, and set to end in October 2020. The contract comes with up to two years of price options.

The rig has an operational air gap of 69m and is capable of operating in a water depth of up to 150m (492ft) in harsh environmental conditions. It boasts a maximum total drilling depth capacity of 10,000m (approximately 33,000ft).

“The Noble Lloyd Noble reaffirms Sembcorp Marine’s ability to continuously scale new peaks as a manufacturer of the world’s most sophisticated rigs,” Wong Weng Sun, Sembcorp Marine president and CEO said. “With a global network of facilities, we are able to execute projects of any scale and complexity to high health, safety and environmental standards. We look forward to partnering with Noble Corp. again in building the best and most versatile offshore structures.”

According to Sembcorp, the Noble Lloyd Noble project achieved 8 million man-hours worked without reportable incidents onboard the rig. It also scored a low Accident Frequency Rate (AFR) of 0.10 per million man-hours worked over a 31-month construction period.

However, the rig was involved in an incident that injured three workers, when a shore crane at Sembcorp’s Tanjong Kling yard was lifting a bundle of scaffold planks from Noble Lloyd Noble to the quayside. During the lifting operation, the boom of the crane came into contact with another crane on the rig, damaging the latter.

Noble’s fleet status report in March revealed that an initial investigation into the cause of the incident, which estimated the damage to be confined to a crane on board the rig and some cabling.

Following the incident, Sembcorp expected to deliver the jackup in Q2.

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