Maersk Drilling has taken delivery of its third ultra harsh environment jackup, XLE-3, from the Keppel FELS shipyard in Singapore, ahead of schedule.
The rig (pictured) will start her mobilisation to the Norwegian North Sea late February. There, after arrival, the unit will start a four-year contract with two one year options with Statoil for development drilling on the Gina Krog field in the Norwegian North Sea.
The rig, which will be named at a ceremony in Singapore in February, is the third in a series of four newbuild ultra harsh environment jackup rigs to enter Maersk Drilling’s rig fleet in 2014-16.
The four jack-up rigs represent a total investment of US$2.6 billion. The first three jackup rigs have now been delivered from the Keppel FELS shipyard, and the fourth will be delivered from the Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering (DSME) shipyard in South Korea in 2016.
With a leg length of 206.8 m (678 ft.) the rigs are the world’s largest jackup rigs and are designed for year round operation in the North Sea, in water depths up to 150m (492ft).
The units have dual pipe handling, which means 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.
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.
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