The new high-tech jack-up rig “Independence” was launched in the Greek port of Kavala. Already this week it will begin passage of the Bosporus Strait, after which it will go to the Turkish port Giresun for the installation of additional equipment. At the end of the works, the installation will be towed to the Odessa deposit to extract gas on the Ukrainian shelf.
The travel of jack-up floating drilling rig from Singapore to the Black Sea took about two months and totaled to more than 11,000 miles. “Independence” passed through the Indian and Atlantic Oceans, the Javanese, Mediterranean, Aegean, and Marmara Seas. The self-lifting floating drilling rig has crossed most of the way on a semi-submerged vessel Xiang Yun Kou.
The unloading of the self-lifting floating rig “Independence” off the coast of Greece took two days and was successful: a semisubmersible vessel sank into the water, leaving a drilling rig weighing about 16 thousand tons afloat, two port tugs took it away from the vessel over which it was located, and a specialized “Magnus” took a jack-up floating drilling rig in tow.
Plans for transportation
On October 3 of this year, it is planned to transport the self-lifting floating drilling rig “Independence” through the Bosporus Strait. For the passage under the two bridges of the strait, parts of three supporting columns and a derrick were dismantled at the shipyard of the manufacturer. They will be delivered to the Black Sea by a self-elevating floating drilling rig and a semi-submersible vessel that transported the drilling rig from Singapore. After the end of a complex operation on the passage of the strait, a special floating vessel towing the jack-up floating rig will take a course to the Turkish port Giresun, where equipment will be installed, tested, and commissioned.
The new drilling rig will start working on the BK-2 platform of the natural gas field, the construction of which is currently underway. It is planned that the second high-tech platform will rise to the drilling point before the end of the year.
The company connects plans for a significant increase in natural gas production on the shelf of the Black and Azov Seas, and as a result, reducing Ukraine’s dependence on imported energy resources, with the capabilities of new self-elevating floating drilling rigs, including “Independence”.