Rotary Drilling Rig Components
Types of Drilling Rigs
Types of Drilling Rigs – Offshore Rigs
A Typical SWAMP Drilling Rig
Types of Drilling Rigs – Offshore Rigs
A Typical SWAMP Drilling Rig
Types of Drilling Rigs – Land Rigs
The sequence of operations is as
follows when a land well is
drilled:
▪ Prepare location before rig
arrives.
▪ Dig cellar
▪ Install conductor pipe
▪ Prepare support pad for
rig, camp, etc
▪ Build roads, fencing, dig
pits
▪ Sometimes drill water well.
▪ Move rig on to location, rig up
and prepare to start drilling.
A typical land drilling rig
Types of Drilling Rigs – Offshore Rigs
➢ Two main types:
▪ Floating
▪ Bottom-supported Unit
➢ Floating unit include: semisubmersible (bottle-type, column
stabilized), barge rig and drill ship.
➢ Bottom-supported unit include: submersible (posted barges,
bottle-type submersibles, arctic submersibles), jackupsand
platforms.
(1) Semi Submersible
▪ This floating drilling unit has columns when flooded with
seawater, cause the structure submerge to a predetermined
depth.
▪ Although it is moved by wave action, it sits low with a large
part of its structure under water combined with eight huge
mooring anchors, make it a very stable installation.
▪ This type of rig drills a hole in the seabed then it moves to the
next location.
Semi Submersible
Semi Submersible
▪ With advancing technology some semi submersibles can drill in
water depths over five thousand feet.
Semi Submersible - Positioning
Semi Submersible - Transporting
(2) Platform
• This immobile structure can be built from concrete or steel and rests
on the seabed.
• When oil or gas is located a platform may be constructed to drill
further wells at that site and also to produce the hydrocarbon.
Steel Jacket Platform
▪ Most common type of platform
▪ Consist of the jacket, a tall vertical section made of tubular steel
members.
▪ Supported by piles driven into the seabed.
▪ Additional sections on top of the jacket provide space for
drilling rig, crew quarters, and other equipment's.
Steel Jacket
Platform
Concrete Gravity Platform
▪ Build from steel reinforced concrete
▪ Tall caissons, or column are the dominant feature of this
platform.
▪ Sometime, special concrete cylinder are fixed at the base of
the caissons on the sea floor to store crude oil.
Concrete Gravity Platform
A concrete platform is so heavy that
gravity alone is enough to hold it in
place.
Concrete Gravity Platform
Steel-Caisson Platform
▪ Specifically for use in cold area
– where fast-moving tidal currents carry pack of ice that can destroy steel-
jacket.
▪ The caissons are made of two layers of thick steel to prevent ice damage.
Compliant Platform
▪ Using rigid platform in water much over 1000 feet depth is not
practical –very much expensive to build.
▪ In deep water, most companies use compliant platform, which
contain fewer steel parts and are lighter than rigid steel-jacket.
▪ Guyed-tower platform and tension-leg platform.
Compliant Platform
Guyed tower platform Tension Leg Platform (TLP)
The relatively light weight jacket of a guyed- Steel tendons are kept in tension by the buoyancy
tower platform is supported By several guy of the platform on a tension-leg platform.
wires & clump weight.
(3) Jack up
▪ This is a mobile drilling rig,
different from the semi
submersible. Instead of floating
over its drilling location the
Jackup has long leg structures,
which it lowers to and into the
seabed raising the rig out of the
water.
▪ The obvious limitation with this
type of installation is the depth
of water it can operate in.
▪ The maximum being five
hundred feet.
Jack up - Transportation
(4) Drill Ship
• As the name suggests this is a ship shaped drilling vessel.
• Unlike the semi submersible and the Jackup, it does not require
tugboats to tow it to location.
• Although they are not as stable as semi submersibles they also drill
in very deep waters.
(5) FPSO
▪ Floating Production, Storage
and Offloading System.
▪ They are attached to a
seabed well head and they
produce and store the oil
until another tanker takes it
from them.
▪ They are used to produce
from small wells where it
would be too expensive to
build a platform.
FPSO
