Keppel begins work on prototype of new drillship

The design has been jointly developed by Keppel O&M’s R&D arm KOMtech and offshore engineering specialist GustoMSC. Construction of the first unit follows class approval of the basic design plus successful model testing at the MARIN facility in the Netherlands.

Keppel has been marketing a drillship design for the last couple of years in an effort to break into a segment dominated by Korean yards.

The drillship will feature a large deck space in order to accommodate third party development and completion drilling equipment, an integrated double blowout preventer (BOP) stack, and capacity for enough risers to support drilling in water depths of up to 12,000ft.

"Our new Can Do drillship design was developed in close consultation with customers, major oil companies and vendors,” said Chow Yew Yuen, coo and ceo designate of Keppel O&M, and will be able to incorporate “next generation 20K psi blowout preventers”.

Keppel reports “very positive” market response since launch of the design earlier this year, leading it to start construction of a prototype unit, which it says will meet the “high functionality, safety and cost-effective requirements” of the offshore drilling industry.