Drilling Rig

A drilling rig is a machine that creates holes in the earth's subsurface. Drilling rigs can
be massive structures housing equipment used to drill water wells, oil wells, or natural gas
extraction wells, or they can be small enough to be moved manually by one person and such are
called augers. Drilling rigs can sample subsurface mineral deposits, test rock, soil and
groundwater physical properties, and also can be used to install sub-surface fabrications, such as
underground utilities, instrumentation, tunnels or wells. Drilling rigs can be mobile equipment
mounted on trucks, tracks or trailers, or more permanent land or marine-based structures (such
as oil platforms, commonly called 'offshore oil rigs' even if they don't contain a drilling rig). The
term "rig" therefore generally refers to the complex equipment that is used to penetrate the
surface of the Earth's crust.

Stability
Stability is simply the ability of a rig to remain afloat. The subject of stability is further divided
under the two headings of (a) Intact Stability and (b) Damaged Stability.
For every rig, the designer or builder should furnish the rig owner with a Stability Booklet
which, at a very minimum, should contain (a) Hydrostatic Properties), (b) Cross Curves of
Stability, [c) Statically Stability Curves, and (d) Dynamic Stability Curves, Items (c) and (d)
should be sufficient to cover the normal operating range of the vessel.
a. Hydrostatic Properties (Figure 1) are generated from the shape of the underwater portion
of the rig and can be used to determine the weight of the rig and the location of the
centroid, longitudinally and transversely. It has many other uses, but the ones just
mentioned will be most often used when moving a rig.
b. Cross Curves of Stability (Figure 2) are also generated from the underwater portion of the
rig and are used by the designer to determine the amount of stability the vessel has when it
is not in the upright position. Figure 3 shows a typical transverse section through a hull.
This figure illustrates how the value of GZ is determined. As the KG value increases the
GZ value decreases, or vice versa.

Figure:1 Hydrostatic properties

a. Statical Stability Curves (Figure 4) are developed from the cross curves of stability and are
curves of righting arm. They are sometimes referred to as GZ curves.
b. Dynamic Stability Curves (Figure 5) are produced from the statical stability curves and
calculations to determine the overturning moment caused by a wind of a given velocity.
This curve is probably the most significant of all curves because it shows whether or not
the rig can be towed during the forecasted weather, while remaining within the safety
parameters of the regulatory bodies.
Other information that many would find useful and could be included in the Stability Booklet,
but which is not considered to be essential, includes (e) Allowable Dynamic Stability KG
Curves, (f) Damaged Stability Calculations, (g) Motion Response Analysis, and (h) Lightship
Characteristics,

Fig 2. Cross curves of stability

e, Allowable Dynamic Stability KG Curves are generated from the dynamic stability
calculations. These curves are a growth of the dynamic stability curves, and they simplify the rig
mover's job by eliminating the need to prepare a calculation of dynamic stability every time he
decides on a possible tow condition.

f. Damaged Stability Calculations should be prepared for the effect of damage to the outside
compartments or flooding into any compartment. These calculations should show that the vessel
has sufficient reserve stability to survive either damage or flooding. If the ABS "Rules for
Building and Classing Offshore Mobile Drilling Units 1973" are applied to the vessel, the ability
to survive damage or flooding must be considered in association with the overturning effect of a
50-knot wind.
 Fig. 3 Transverse righting arm and center of buoyancy.

a. Motion Response Analysis is the study of the rig in a "hove to" state. This is the position
when "going on location," and the results of this analysis are used to determine the stresses
induced when a jack-up leg touches bottom or those caused by mooring forces on a
drillship or semi-submersible.
b. Lightship Characteristics are probably the most used (or misused) information that should
be supplied. This information is prepared either from a series of accurate weight
calculations or from an inclining experiment, or both.

Fig. 4 Statically stability curve.

The calculations determine the weight and center of gravity in all directions of the dry rig, i.e.,
no variables of any kind are included. From this information, the operator determines the
condition of the rig at any time. It must be stressed here that although the shipbuilder may have
gone to great lengths to determine the lightship upon completion, it is up to the owner or operator
to make sure that the values are adjusted if any changes are made to the rig, i.e., equipment or
structure changed, added, removed, or even relocated.

Fig.5 Dynamic stability curve.

The Lightship Characteristics are the foundation of all calculations for the afloat and elevated
positions, and an inaccurate number not only makes all other calculations worthless, but could
also endanger the safety of the rig and personnel.

How do offshore drilling platforms move from place to place? They are as wide as entire
football fields, stand at least 10 to 20 stories tall, and weigh many tons. How do they move
around without sinking to the bottom of the ocean?

If it floats like a boat, it can be driven/towed like a boat. But there are definitely some special
considerations. Most offshore drilling vessels/platforms are designed to be moved from location
to location. The majority of exploratory wells drilled are failures, so it would not make sense to
build a permanent structure at the start of a drilling campaign. We use a variety of styles of
temporary/mobile structures to drill exploratory wells (and often to drill the development wells,
too). These are called Mobile Offshore Drilling Units (MODUs).

Only once an oil reservoir is 1) found, 2) appraised, and 3) assigned development funding does it
make sense to build a permanent, semi-immobile structure over the field. These permanent
facilities may or may not have an integral drilling rig onboard, but we don't call them drilling
vessels -- we call permanent facilities "production platforms". So drilling equipment is generally
mobile, while production equipment is generally stationary. There are many different types of
drilling vessel. Some are self-powered and some are towed. In increasing order of water depth:

Swamp Barge

Barge rigs are used in extremely shallow water (5-10 ft) which usually makes
them suitable for use in swamps and sheltered bays. They are moved to
location, and then ballasted down to sit directly on bottom. You see these in
south Louisiana a lot -- it's a pretty common sight to be stuck at a drawbridge
while a drilling barge floats through.

Jack Up
Jack-up rigs are used on the continental shelf, near land. The defining feature of a jack-up rig is
having 3-4 enormous legs. Once floating above the desired location, they use massive hydraulic
jacks to lower the legs down to the seafloor. Then, as the jacks continue pushing the legs down,
the rig gets jacked up out of the water. Once the legs settle into the seafloor mud and the rig is
above the wave zone, everything is stable enough for drilling.

Semi-Submersible
This is a fully-floating rig that is usually used up to 8,000 ft water depth. Semi-subs are usually
anchored in place up to about 5,000 ft water depth, but in deeper water they are more often
dynamically positioned, using only an array of large directional thrusters on the lower hull
section to maintain position according to various GPS receivers and sonar beacons.

Semi-submersibles are so named because they have a large lower structure that can be
filled/drained of water to ballast the rig up and down. When moving from place to place, the rig
can be ballasted up out of the water to reduce hull drag. Then upon arriving at the drill site, the
lower structure is filled with water to put a large amount of mass beneath the wave zone. This
submerged mass stabilizes the rig so that waves have minimal ability to rock and roll the rig.
This gets into some pretty complicated naval architecture, but the basic premise is that the farther
the center of mass is below the center of buoyancy, the more stable the structure is. Only the legs
provide buoyancy and are affected by wave action. Most of the mass is below the legs.

Semi-sub vs Drillship:

Drillship
Drillships are basically regular ship-form hulls, except they have a big hole in the middle (called
the moonpool) for the drilling equipment to pass through on its way to the sea floor. They can
move around exactly like a normal ship. Almost all drillships are dynamically positioned, using
two sets (front and back) of 360-degree rotatable thrusters. You can anchor a drillship in
shallower water, but the ability to "weathervane" the rig to keep the bow into the
wind/waves/current is extremely important to the stability of the vessel. You always want the
smallest cross-section pointed towards the dominant environmental load. Since anchoring
usually does not permit weathervaning, it's only feasible in areas with exceedingly mild
weather. An important consequence of dynamic positioning is that drillships are usually only
good for deep water (3,000-10,000 ft). They're next to useless in shallow water, because errors in
the positioning system of a few tens of feet cause large bending moments to form in the pipes
going to the seafloor. It's basic trigonometry: the deeper the water, the less angular offset you get
for a particular position offset. The accuracy of the GPS and sonar systems is usually within a
couple feet, but like any system, occasionally there are failures. If the rig suffers a power
blackout, it will start drifting off position. The drilling riser pipe has flex joints that are usually
designed for around 6 degrees of bending at the seafloor. Your blackout recovery or emergency
disconnection time needs to be faster than the time it takes to drift to a 6 degree offset. In 8,000 ft
of water, that safe drifting time window is 10 times longer than in 800 ft of water. A lot of
analysis goes into this sort of thing.

Aside from drilling vessels, there are also many different types of
production facilities:

Fixed Jacket Platform

This type of platform is usually built in three stages. First, massive pilings are driven into the sea
floor to provide a stable base. These must secure the structure against large bending/toppling
moments from wind/waves/current. Then, the pre-fabbed steel "jacket" is towed into position and
set down on the seafloor, where divers secure it to the pilings. Finally, the "topsides" are lifted
onto the jacket with a large crane barge and secured in place by [Link] are built and stay
in place until decommissioned many decades later. Usually the topsides are cut off and returned
to land for recycling, whereas the jacket can be toppled onto its side and used as an artificial reef.
Marine life loves oil rigs.

Tension Leg Platform

Another floating platform style is the TLP. These use high-tension vertical anchor lines attached
to large weights or subsea pilings to pull the rig down somewhat below the level where it would
normally float. By pulling the rig down, a large buoyant force is created that helps keep the
vessel stable. These are basically immune to wave-induced heave, so fixed pipes can be run to
the seafloor. (Other types of floating platform require top-tensioning motion compensators or
flexible semi-buoyant risers.)
Moving a TLP would require cutting all the production riser pipes, releasing from the piles or
picking up the weights, and being towed away.
Semi-Submersible

Semi-submersibles can be used as production platforms, exactly as they're used for drilling rigs.
They do tend to be bigger as production platforms, because they must support the weight of
many different production risers instead of just one drilling riser. Production semi-subs are
always anchored because dynamic positioning burns a lot of fuel and is not reliable enough for
decades of continuous production. The lack of integral thrusters means semi-sub platforms are
either towed or carried to the field, as pictured.

Floating Production/Storage/Offloading

FPSOs are highly-specialized vessels that, unlike most production platforms, have no onboard
drilling rig. They tend to be more mobile than other production facilities -- it's fairly common to
disconnect an FPSO during bad weather or iceberg danger and move it off location. That can be
via tugs like the round FPSO pictured, or via onboard propulsion as a ship-form FPSO pictured
below. Pipeline connections generally require a permanent structure, so FPSOs offload oil via
tankers.
 Turreted FPSO:

FPSO "turrets"allow ship-form vessels to rotate with the weather. This is a big advantage over
drillships, in that an FPSO can be anchored in position via the turret and still weathervane to
minimize the impact of wind/waves/current. Turrets are highly complex structures with many
rotating sealing elements to allow oil to flow up and hydraulic/electrical signals to go down. If
the FPSO leaves location, the lower part of the turret will stay behind (often floating just below
the surface). Then when the danger passes, the vessel comes back and reconnects to regain
control of the field. I think that's all the basics of how we move offshore oil rigs and platforms
into and out of place over the reservoir. Offshore drilling is a very highly specialized pursuit with
enormous equipment, so over the years we've had to push the limits of engineering and invent a
lot of mind-blowing techniques.
OFFSHORE CONTINGENCY PLANS.

The contingency plan (called also the emergency response

plan) for shipboard emergencies is (Offshore unit manager) to
identify all the risks relevant to offshore platforms and the crew,
and some that may pose threats to the environment, as well as to
establish adequate safeguards against their occurrence and
pursuant to section [Link] the Owner is required to ensure
continuous improvement of skills of shore side personnel and
shipboard personnel in terms of security management including
preparation to response to threats, and the eighth chapter of the
ISM Code. Safety Management System should provide measures
ensuring that the shipowner has the necessary organization,
which can react to threats, accidents and emergencies which
may occur at an offshore
unit at any time.
 WHAT IS OFFSHORE CONTINGENCY PLANNING

A contingency plan is a course of action designed to help an

organization respond effectively to a significant future event or
situation that may or may not happen. A contingency plan is
sometimes referred to as "Plan B," because it can be also used as
an alternative for action if expected results fail to materialize.
Contingency planning is a component of business
continuity, disaster recovery and risk management.

WHY CONTINGENCY PLANNING?

You’re humming along in your place of work, and suddenly —
out of the blue — the unexpected happens. It could be in the
form of a natural disaster, or something else, like a medical
emergency for you or your most valuable colleagues. You could
lose you’re your work done. Any of these events could prevent a
business from functioning, and that’s where contingency
planning can save the day. “Contingency planning involves
asking yourself what could go wrong for every aspect of your
business, and then preparing an action plan for what you will do
 if that happens.” Here is a four-step process you can use to
prepare a contingency plan for your business.

Step 1: Identify the Key Risks

You’ll first need to identify which potential areas in your
business could possibly cause problems. To do this, many
business owners brainstorm with their employees, looking at all
areas of operation and identifying the things that could go
wrong. Bush says that might include things like the bank not
agreeing to refinance your business mortgage or losing your
biggest customer. Here are a few more examples:

 Purchasing: What if your key supplier goes out of business? What

if you lose your credit account with one of your major vendors?
 Staff: How would you issue paychecks if your payroll clerk
suddenly quits? What if your manager doesn’t show up for work
for a day — or longer?
 Sales: What if your top producing salesperson takes a job with
your competition? What if one of your employees commits a
social media gaffe and people in your community began
boycotting your business?

 Natural disasters: What if the power in your area goes out and
you lose access to your data, including customer information and
receipts? What if a flood, earthquake, tornado, hurricane, or
other natural disaster hits?
 In addition to brainstorming, Bush says it helps to have an
outsider, such as your accountant or business consultant, “take a
look under the hood” and provide some suggestions, because
potential risks aren’t always obvious.

Step 2: Prioritize the Risks

Now that you have a list of many possible scenarios, it’s time to
identify those that pose the biggest chance of causing an
interruption to your business. Skills training site Mind Tools
recommends doing this by assigning a ranking to each of the
possible risks in two areas. First give each risk a probability
ranking of 1 to 10, and then rank it in terms of the possible
impact on your business. After you have ranked them all, you can
use Mind Tools’ free chart to create a visual representation of
how to prioritize the risks.
Step 3: Create a Contingency Plan
Once you’ve identified the scenarios that are most likely to
disrupt your business operations, you’ll need to create a
contingency plan for each. If your goal is to decide what you will
do to resume business in case one of the disruptive scenarios
takes place, you’ll need to outline a step-by-step plan for each
one. Some of the key points you’ll want to consider are:

 Timelines: When creating contingency plans, be sure to look at

them from a timeline perspective. What will you need to do in the
first hour after a data loss? What about the first day? The first
week?
 Communications: Decide in advance who will be in charge of
communicating with everyone else for each scenario. Bush says
that for small-business owners, it’s a good idea for them to
assume responsibility for something this important.
 Staff needs: Talk to each of your departments or employees and
have them list exactly what they’ll need to continue operating if a
given scenario occurs. Then make the necessary arrangements to
provide it.
 Reduce the risk: For example, for natural disasters, you can
reduce the risk by making sure you have adequate insurance
coverage. To reduce the risk of a data loss, you can store yours
securely in the cloud and stay informed by signing up for free
bulletins about current cyber risks from the Department of
Homeland Security.
Because each risk calls for a unique contingency plan, you’ll have
to devise one for each.
Step 4: Maintain the Plan
Now that you’ve created contingency plans for each of your risk
areas, you’ll need to ensure that they’re updated and handy if
you need them. Bush says business owners should consider
reviewing the plans monthly and quarterly. In addition to
keeping them updated, here are some other tips to ensure that
your plan will be of help should an unexpected situation arise:

 Don’t store the plan only in digital form. If the power goes out or
you lose your data, you won’t be able to access it. Keep a copy in
paper format, as well.
 Store a copy of it onsite and offsite in case something prevents
you from going to the business.
 Make sure that all employees are aware of the plan, and can
access it.
 Ensure that everyone knows their role in the plan and has the
training to do their job.

ELEMENTS OF A OFFSHORE CONTINGENCY PLAN:

• Organization — A diagram and brief description of the

organization needed to manage the contingency or event.

 Resources — Resources that will be utilized to manage the

contingency will need to be identified.

~May want to identify the specific resources or a more generic

“type” of resource.

~Resources may be pre-staged on stand-by for assignment or

may be reassigned from other areas of the incident.

• Objectives — Objectives not already in the Incident Action Plan

(IAP) and specific to the contingency issue should be identified.

~Be sure to include any specific or special instructions and

specific safety information.
~Resources assigned to the contingency plan prior to
implementation may be assigned to tasks such as recon, outside
agency coordination, tactical planning, public relations, etc.

• Communications — A communication plan will need to be

identified for contingency resources. If frequencies need to be
shared, ensure that contingency resources have a high priority
and exclusive use when possible (i.e., share tactical frequency
with a smaller, less active division on the other side of the
incident, etc.).

• Maps — Maps with appropriate symbols will need to be

included. Be sure to include “new” division breaks and staging
areas, etc.

• Decision Points (formally trigger points) — A statement

relating to what will need to occur that will initiate the
implementation of the contingency plan. For example, “If the fire
passes this point” or “If the fire spreads to exposure D,” then
these actions are initiated from the contingency plan.

• Designate or Identify the ONLY Individual(s) — Designate

or identify the only individual(s) who will initiate the contingency
plan. This might include the IC, operations, division, a designated
lookout, etc.
1.1 KEY POINTS:

• Always include all assisting and cooperating agencies in the

planning process and briefings. This is especially important when
large area evacuations are required and existing plans may
conflict with your contingency.

• Effective communication and individual discipline are critical

for maintaining control of resources when incidents are rapidly
escalating.

• Establish adequate staging areas. They will be needed to

quickly move resources into and out of tactical assignments.
Clear briefings for staging managers are critical.

• The use of “phantom” (not staffed) and “skeleton” (minimally

staffed) divisions, groups, and branches can be helpful in
maintaining control while rapidly moving resources. For example,
an unstaffed division with only a division supervisor can be
rapidly put together when resources are quickly fed from a
nearby staging area. Conversely, a division can rapidly release
resources to another need if personnel are already aware and
prepared for this event during the operational period. Note: these
examples will have much greater success if the person(s)
assigned has the past experience, knowledge, and skill sets for
performing these duties.
• Contingency plans should continue to be improved upon as long
as resources are available for that assignment. In addition,
contingency plans, by their nature, will be used when events are
rapidly escalating and should be as simple as possible in their
instructions. Feedback from contingency resources and others is
critical to ensure they understand their assignment(s).

TYPES OF OFFSHORE CONTINGENCY PLANS:

The following are some examples of when contingency plans

might be appropriate:

• High rise fire

• Hazardous materials incident

• Evacuations

• Train derailment

• Rapid or forecasted changing in the weather

• Large area structure protection

• Flooding

• Hurricane

• Earthquakes

• Large wildfires

• Multi-casualty.

The Importance of Offshore Contingency Planning

Every business has the possibility of a situation that

adversely impacts operations. If the response to the situation is
poor, it might have a dramatic impact on the future of the
business, such as loss of customers, loss of data, or even the loss
of the business.

A good contingency plan should include any event that might

disrupt operations. Here are some specific areas to include in the
plan:

 Natural disasters, such as hurricanes, fires, and

earthquakes
 Crises, such as threatening employees or customers, on-the-
job injuries, and worksite accidents
 Personnel, such as death of a senior manager, or union
members going on strike
 Data loss, such as loss due to natural disasters, sabotage, or
other criminal action (such as an attack on a website)
 Mismanagement, such as theft, neglect of critical duties, or
accidental destruction
 Product issues, such as a huge order that requires
reallocation of plant resources, or a product recall