Yantai Raffles Shipyard chairman Brian Chang
Yantai ponders delay for Awilco semisub
Yantai Raffles Shipyard will probably not lift the deck box for Awilco's first semi-submersible drilling rig until August or September, casting doubt on whether the delayed unit will be ready for delivery in October as per its revised schedule.
The 12,500-tonne deck box for the WilPioneer will be lifted by Yantai's world record-holding dual gantry crane Taisun at its yard at Yantai, China.
The contractor plans to use Taisun for nine lifts of between 10,000 and 16,000 tonnes on semisub projects and for an 8000-tonne lift on the accommodation unit it is building for Saipem.
Taisun is set up semi-independently within Yantai Raffles Shipyard and the intent is that the $40 million crane will be shared with other parties via turnkey mating contracts.
Using Taisun could reduce the average time to build a 'big semisub' of 8 million manhours by 2 million manhours, according to Yantai Raffles Shipyard chairman Brian Chang.
"There are many ways to save time," said Chang, pointing out that poor engineering wastes time and the industry continues to use the same "proven, tested and faulty systems".
"There has been no reduction in the fabrication time of semisubs in the past 20 years," he claimed.
Yantai Raffles Shipyard is planning to build more facilities, reflecting Chang's conviction that the company will be taking a larger share of the rig building and offshore fabrication market in future.