Transocean drillship assigned to Turkish Black Sea

Offshore staff

ANKARA, Turkey -- ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Turkey will use Transocean’s new drillship Deepwater Champion, for its deepwater exploration program in the Turkish sector of the Black Sea offshore Turkey.

According to Drew Goodbread, ExxonMobil Turkey general manager based in Ankara, the sixth-generation drillship is currently under construction at the Hyundai Heavy Industries shipyard in Ulsan, South Korea, but should be ready to drill its first well in the Turkish Black Sea in the first half of 2011. It will be able to drill to subsurface depths of 12,190 m (40,000 ft), in up to 3,660 m (12,000 ft) of water.

The vessel’s drilling derrick contains two drilling stations equipped for a variety of simultaneous operations. The derrick has two removable sections to assist transit under the bridges spanning the Bosphorus Strait at Istanbul. The double-hulled vessel is self-propelled and is designed to maintain station in open water in 9-m (30-ft) waves and 60-knot (70-mph) winds.

In November 2008, ExxonMobil and Turkish national oil company TPAO agreed to jointly explore Black Sea deepwater prospects in the Samsun block of the AR/TPO/3922 exploration license and the eastern portion of AR/TPO/3921 exploration license. This past January, ExxonMobil also signed an accord with TPAO and Petrobras to acquire a 25% interest in the Sinop, Ayancik, and Carsamba sub-blocks of the AR/TPO/3922 license.

3/17/2010