Vol. 227 No. 12

New rig designs

A quiet compact rig

KCA Deutag’s new T-208 rig is built for Europe’s demanding environmental standards. The modular rig uses a new, low-emission engine, the Caterpillar series 3512, which reduces NOx to less than 2,000 mg/m³, CO to less than 350 mg/m³ and particulates to less than 50 mg/m³. Fuel economy is good at 330 l/hr at 100% operating speed and 356 l/hr at 110% operating speed. Perhaps even more important for the crews is the rig’s sound insulation, which reduces mechanical noise from the generators, drawworks and other major equipment to 80 dbA at 1 meter.

KCA Deutag’s T-208 rig is soundproofed to reduce mechanical noise from generators, drawworks and other major equipment.

KCA Deutag has produced modular rigs in the past with its first rig, T-43, going to work in the mid-1980s and the T-2000 entering the fleet in the late 1990s. While the T-43 had a modest 700 hp and the T-2000 rated 2,000 hp, the T-208 has a 1,150 hp rating for drilling to 5,000 m with 5-in. drill pipe.

The new rig offers several special features:

• Modular substructure
• Bootstrap mast erection in four segments
• Topdrive with quiet helical gears and AC power
• 4-quadrant drawworks disc brakes
• Video monitoring at the finger- and stabbing boards
• Soundproofed equipment.

The rig’s modular design was produced and constructed with a joint team from Bentec Engineering and KCA Deutag. With the contract award in early January 2005, fabrication began in mid-October 2005. Commissioning took place six months later in April 2006 and the rig-build project was completed by early May 2006, just in time for the scheduled start of a multi-well, three-year project for OMV in Vienna, Austria.

The design makes moving locations easy because of its box-on-box substructure. This design also lets the rig crew assemble the substructure with two drillfloor heights: 5.9 m for workovers or 9 m for drilling. The compact design also allows the rig to be assembled on smaller pads than standard rigs. The equipment can be erected on spaces from 1,600 m² to 2,500 m² in area.