Yantai CIMC Raffles appears to be making the offshore energy market a prime focus going forward. Last month, the Chinese shipbuilder acquired a 90 percent stake in Swedish engineering firm Bassoe Technology, a company that focuses on the concept development and basic design of advanced offshore floating and mobile units. Today, they announced their fourth rig order in the past week including a harsh environment semi and a “multi purpose” drilling rig.
Beacon Holdings Group Ltd ordered a Global Maritime GM4000-D harsh environment, ice class semi-submersible drilling rig. This is the second such rig ordered at CIMC Raffles and is designed to resist the strongest storms in the North Sea, and fulfills the requirements of NMA, NORSOK and PSA Standards.
CIMC Raffles notes that this rig will be named Beacon Atlantic and will be able to operate in water depths of up to 500 meters and drill wells down to 8000 meters. It will be DNV-classed and equipped with an NOV drilling package, DP3 and 8-point mooring system. Delivery is scheduled for Q4 2016 and the order includes options for one additional rig.
In addition, Bergen-based drilling contractor Norshore Holdings AS placed a newbuild order for a Multi-Purpose drillship with options for three additional vessels
With a delivery scheduled in the second half of 2016 this rig will be used for top-hole, riser-less drilling and well intervention operations. Such a vessel would be operated at significantly lower day rates as compared to a high specification drill ship and would compete for market share with companies such as Helix ESG.