China Oilfield Service Ltd (COSL) has taken delivery of the deep-water semi-submersible drilling rig Hai Yang Shi You 982 built by Chinese yard Dalian Shipbuilding Heavy Industry Offshore (DSIC Offshore), although the unit will undergo some fitting out work before entering operations, writes Xu Yihe.

The unit will be equipped to meet the drilling requirements for its first job, an industry official said.

He declined to give details of the rig’s first contract, but said it will work for a foreign oil company outside China.

The rig was being towed this week to CIMC Raffles, another Chinese yard in Shandong province, for the work as sources said that CIMC Raffles offered a very competitive price for port use at its yard.

The work will take about a month before the rig moves on for its maiden drilling job.

Earlier, COSL offered the rig to foreign companies in several tenders for drilling campaigns in Asia.

Sources said COSL also considered drilling three deepwater wells using Hai Yang Shi You 982 in the South China Sea, but that plan did not work out.

The unit, ordered from DSIC Offshore in 2013, has been built to the A5000 design by Norway’s Agility Group and can operate in water depths of 1500 metres.

It is capable of drilling to 9144 metres in the harsh environment of the Norwegian North Sea.

It has a variable deck load capacity of 5000 tonnes and is able to accommodate 180 crew.

It is the sister unit to Hai Yang Shi You 981, which was built by Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding in 2011.

Weekly

Semisub delivery for COSL