The international engineering company Aker Solutions has introduced a new type semi-submersible drilling platform. This model, called Semi Lean, much easier and cheaper to manufacture than a classic platform semi-submersible type.
Semi Lean can work in the fields of medium size — up to 300 million barrels of oil, is located under water at a depth of from 100 to 400 meters. Total weight is about 6 tons, which is 30% less than the mass of a conventional offshore drilling rig notes the information resource of World Oil.
“We anticipate that these platforms will be the ideal means to service a relatively small reservoirs adjacent to giant oil fields, says Valberg, Lundegaard, head of the technical Department of Aker Solutions. The concept of Lean Semi combines a fairly inexpensive design with the highest security requirements.”
The lightweight platform can work almost anywhere in the world, even in very hard conditions and in aggressive environments. Due to the smaller mass delivery time of drilling for the place of work also decreased.
The concept merged the best characteristics of the two project platforms, one of which was intended for the North sea and another for the Gulf of Mexico. This allowed for lower construction costs to achieve a productivity of 60 thousand barrels per day.
The basic concept is a body with only one flat deck, which set standardized modules, equipment and control systems. One common deck allows you to provide sufficient structural integrity of the structure, and standardization greatly reduces the cost of the construction of the platform.
