Sembcorp Marine’s Brazilian shipyard Estaleiro Jurong Aracruz has won a $792.5m contract from Guarapari Drilling, of the Netherlands, a subsidiary of Sete Brasil Participacões (Sete Brasil), to design and construct a new drillship.
The drillship will be based on Jurong Shipyard’s Espadon drillship design.
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Sembcorp Marine president and CEO Wong Weng Sun said this is a significant milestone as this order not only represents the first drillship built by the company for Brazil but is also the first project secured by its new shipyard in Aracruz.
“The fact that Sete Brasil has chosen our design is a testament of the drillship’s high-specification capabilities and innovative design as compared to its peers,” Weng Sun said.
“We believe this order will be the first of many orders in Sete Brasil’s ambitious drillship expansion programme to develop the giant Brazilian pre-salt oil fields.”
The vessel will be equipped with advanced capabilities for operational efficiency and ultra-deepwater operations around the world. It will have drilling facilities, a larger deck area with a 40-metre-wide main deck, efficient deck arrangement and will be capable of operating in water depths of up to 10,000 feet and drilling to depths of up to 40,000 feet.
The ultra-deepwater drillship will also have a large moon pool for enhanced drilling operations, dynamic positioning class three (DP-3 ) capabilities, Azimuth thrusters for improved operability and will be capable of accommodating up to 180 people.
Scheduled for delivery in the second quarter of 2015, the drillship will be built in Brazil to cater to the recent oil and gas discoveries in the offshore giant pre-salt fields.
Construction on Sembcorp’s $550m Estaleiro Jurong Aracruz shipyard in Brazil was started in December 2011.
The Estaleiro Jurong Aracruz shipyard is being built on a 82.5 hectare site and will be completed in stages with full completion expected by the end of 2014. Estaleiro Jurong Aracruz facilities will include a 120m x 380m drydock, a 1km berthing quay, as well as ancillary piping facilities and steel fabrication workshops.
