History of Oil & Gas Well Drilling

From Floating Vessels

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 The First Floating Drilling
Vessels
u1932 a mobile submersible rig was first
used. The Texas Company’s rig
McBride. Planned to drill on inland
water while floating it was so loaded
down with supplies it wound up sitting
on bottom which subsequently was the
way it was used from then on.

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 The First Floating Drilling
Vessels
uThe Texas Company’s rig the Giliasso
was subsequently built as the first
intentionally submersible drilling
barge.

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 The First Floating Drilling
Vessels
uAlso in 1932 the first tender systems
were used. A tender has the derrick
and drilling platform set onto a
permanent production platform with
the pipe rack, mud pumps, mud
handling facilties, crew quarters, and
storage supplied from a floating vessel
moored to the platform.

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 The First Floating Drilling
Vessels
uIn 1953 the first of the drillships
emerged. The CUSS group’s Global
Marine SUBMAREX, an ex-naval patrol
craft converted to drill core holes to a
depth of 3,000’off the California coast.
uIn 1955 a flat bottomed naval barge
was converted to a drilling barge to
become the SoCal Western Explorer,
subsequently the Glomar Western
Explorer.

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 The First Floating Drilling
Vessels
uIn 1956 the CUSS I became the first full
scale drillship.
uIn 1961 the CUSS I became the first
dynamically positioned vessel using
outboard motors it cored to a depth of
600’in 12,000 feet of water.
uBy 1988 over 20 dynamically
positioned drilling vessels were
operational.

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 The First Floating Drilling
Vessels
uThe GLOMAR CHALLENGER became
the first custom built dynamically
positioned drilling vessel fully
operational in 1968.
uIn the 1970s a wide range of drilling
vessels were developed for both static
and dynamic operations and including
drillships and the first semi-
submersible rigs.

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 Moored drillship

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 Moored semi-submersible

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 Vessel mooring system

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 Semi-submersible rig
with Guideline Drilling System

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 Dynamically Positioned Drillship
with Guidelineless Drilling System

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 Dynamically positioned drillship underway

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 Top 3 Most Recent Water Depth
Drilling Records
uShell
– Water Depth 6,952’
– Hyena Project
– Baltimore Canyon - GOM
– Discoverer Seven Seas
– May 1984

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 Top 3 Most Recent Water Depth
Drilling Records

uShell
– Water Depth 7,520’
– Coulomb Project
– Mississippi Canyon Block 657 - GOM
– Discoverer Seven Seas
– November 1987

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 Top 3 Most Recent Water Depth
Drilling Records
uShell
– Water Depth 7,612
– Baha Project
– Alaminos Canyon Block 600 - GOM
– Discoverer 534
– April 1996

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