The logistical challenges of rig maintenance and newbuilding are being met by Sharjah's premier rig yard.
Sharjah-based Maritime Industrial Services (MIS) will pass a major milestone this year becoming the first Middle Eastern yard to deliver not just the first, but also the second newbuild jackup rigs ever entirely fabricated in the region.
"We expect to deliver the SeaWolf Oritsetimeyin - on schedule, on budget and according to plan in August, and another in the same class in December this year. Naturally, we are very excited and extremely proud of this," beams Jerry Smith, managing director at MIS.
MIS has been operating in the region since 1979, providing a comprehensive line of engineering, fabrication and maintenance services to the oil, gas, petrochemical and marine sectors.
The 200 000m2 yard at Mina Khalid in Shajah, has exploited the capacity-shortage in traditional newbuild sites in Singapore, China and the US Gulf Coast to leverage a position for itself among the ranks of the world's newbuild yards for major offshore jack-up drilling rigs.
SeaWolf Oritsetimeyin, originally contracted by Norwegian Mosvold Jackup in 2006, is the first of two offshore jack-up drilling rigs being built by MIS for SeaWolf Oilfield Services, a Nigerian drilling company, in a contract worth US $254m.
The rig is a Friede and Goldman Super Mod 2 design with 30 000 foot rated drilling depth and an operating water depth capability of 300 feet. SeaWolf Onome, SeaWolf's second jack up rig under MIS's construction, is the same specification and scheduled for delivery to SeaWolf in December 2008.
Until the current projects were undertaken, MIS traditionally undertook maintenance and refurbishment work on jackup rigs operating around the Arabian Peninsula. "As a yard we've specialised somewhat on these as there isn't really that much demand for semi submersible rigs in the Gulf region," explains Smith.
Most of the designs in use now have actually been in existence for some time, but what's driving business for most yards in the region is older class rigs being overhauled and enhanced in a comprehensive way. "This can incorporate anything from making the hull bigger, or the legs stronger, but the thing that's really changing on the rigs is the equipment package," says Smith.
"The computers and electronic system are being massively upgraded, and this has a direct impact on the drilling methodology and the drilling technology that's deployed also. This equipment and integrated systems approach has gone through a huge amount of development over the last decade," he says.
Enhancing and maintaining the behemoth structures carries significant logistical challenges for the yards. To manoeuvre the rig the legs are raised skywards and the rig becomes a floating entity.
These are then towed by tug boats to the location where the work will be carried out. Once at the yard the legs are then used to jackup the rig to the requisite height for the work to be carried out. This keeps the surface level constant and increases stability compared to when the rig is floating.
"The rigs are designed to cope with a fairly severe storm even when they are in the floating state, but it would be fair to say this is when they are at their most vulnerable. The stability is gone, and in really rough conditions it is quite possible for equipment, or parts of the structure to sustain damage in this condition."
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