Launch of Keppel Corp Project 325
Yet another successful launch for Keppel Corp in Singapore. The offshore and marine giant set afloat the Mobile Offshore Self-Elevating Drilling Unit (SEDU) Arabdrill 50 (Hull B325) on 31 August 2012. Remaining portions of the legs are to be installed now that she is splashed.
This launch involved the placement of the near-completed unit on well waxed skids and then a ‘hold-back’ mechanism is released and a piston provides an initial push (not captured at the beginning of embedded video). The unit is floated out in the bay and kept from making a quick break by the mooring lines seen in the picture above.
For reference, ‘jack-ups’, as they are typically referred to based on their self-elevating nature, are usually placed in less than 400′ (121m) of ‘drink’ in near coastal waters.
Any gCaptainer’s have any additional details on this facility?
It's neat to watch films like this. The sad part is American ship yards and seaman saved the world in WW2 don't have a chance today.
Launching a jack-up is no big deal. A jack-up hull is not big, by shipbuilding standards. They are usually launched without their legs, because the legs would interfere with the launch process and it’s much safer to install the legs after the hull is afloat. Nor is the launch of a jack-up an unusual event: there are currently about 72 jack-ups under construction or on order worldwide, including several at U.S. yards, plus about 15 semi-submersible drill rigs and 45 self-propelled drill ships.
Keppel is, indeed, the world leader in the jack-up sector, but the other Singaporean yards are not far behind and they were all essentially set up in the business by the U.S. companies that invented the jack-up – LeTourneau, Bethlehem Steel, Levingston Shipbuilding and Baker Marine. U.S. engineers invented the offshore industry and for years, all the rigs were built in Texas. The huge surge in demand of the rig-building boom of the 1970s stimulated overseas construction and, once we had transferred the technology to the yards in Singapore and elsewhere, it stayed transferred. If rigs had been covered by the Jones Act, things might have been different, but they weren’t.
Brazil Is very strict about insuring that all the new builds are built in Brazilian shipyards.Too bad our Congress doesn’t have the balls to stand up for there country and make this happen here.
All Keppel enterprises have not been so successful like this one. In 1983 Keppel tried to enter Oil Exploration and Production field with their drillship venture, the Eniwetok. That was a complete fiasco, which ended up in Federal Court, Houston, Texas and was closed three years later. Useless to say Keppel had to pay millions of dollars for their screw up.