December 2004 Supplement

Rig and Rig Floor Technology

A review of recently applied rig floor equipment, new rig designs and tables of key operating data

This feature describes drilling rig innovations within three sections of technical descriptions including illustrations of the equipment or new rig presented. A fourth section presents tables of present offshore rigs capable of operating in three selected categories of rig fleet descriptions. The contents of the four sections are as follows:

1. Rig floor technology. Described in this section are technical reviews and illustrations of 12 examples of new rig floor equipment that has been recently applied in drilling operations or is in final states of development. Included in this section are:
   • A bulk mud mixer that eliminates need for a hopper
   • A coiled tubing rig motion compensation system
   • A tong handling system to maneuver unwieldy hydraulic systems
   • An unconventional casing running system working below a top drive
   • A pipe racking system to eliminate need for a derrick man
   • A shale shaker capable of both linear and dual motion
   • A Compact Iron Roughneck for land rigs and smaller offshore rigs
   • Simple, compact mechanical hydraulic power slips
   • Drawworks with 3,000 hp and 2,000,000-lb hook load
   • A Continuous Circulation System operating during connection operations
   • An offshore rig design for surface BOP stack operations and
   • A self-contained fully automated drill pipe tong.
2. New rig designs. This section features eight examples of new rig designs for improved or specialized operations both onshore and offshore. Included in these reviews and illustrations are:
   • A flexible and modular drilling/workover rig for shallow water platforms
   • A compact, top drive, automated onshore rig
   • A platform rig movable in 17 ISO containers for drilling with casing
   • Examples of a harsh environment jackup design for demanding operations
   • A scaled down rig for shallow gas drilling with coiled tubing or jointed-pipe applications
   • An automated casing while drilling unit
   • Examples of 5th Generation deeply moored and dynamically positioned semisubmersibles, and
   • A new class of jackup for shallow-water, deep drilling activities.
3. Future rig designs. Two additional rig innovations are described and illustrated in this section for concepts working for innovative new rigs. These two items feature:
   • A coiled tubing rig promoted by the Los Alamos National Laboratory for drilling deep, small “microholes” of 1-3/8-in. to 2-3/8-in. diameter, to 10,000 ft, and
   • Progress with the radically new seabed rig.
4. Rig information tables. Included in this section are data on:
   • The top ten contractors by fleet size
   • Rigs capable of operating in 8,000-ft water (15 drillships and seven semisubmersibles), and
   • The top jackup rigs capable of 400-ft or greater water depth (20 units from nine contractors).

Information for the above equipment and rig data was supplied directly by service/supply companies offering the rig floor innovations and drilling contractors operating or using the various new rig designs. Information for the tables was supplied from Rigzone.com’s new RigLogix mobile offshore rig database.