Transformers:
Jack-up drilling rig
Vijay Krishna Mishra
AGM (Coating) - #Ex L&T Hydrocarbon, #Ex SISCOL #Ex PPG, #Ex
Hempel.
February 18, 2017
A jack-up drilling rig is an example of a Mobile Offshore Drilling
Unit (MODU). Drilling rigs on land are extremely simple, but because a
jack-up has to be mobile and sea-going, it needs facilities to generate its
own power and water and house the inhabitants that keep it running. That
makes it a bit more complicated but, in essence, it’s just a big drill. It
consists of a platform that stands above the water level, and (normally
three) legs that reach down to the ocean floor for it to stand [Link] legs
can be retracted (jacked up) so that they no longer reach into the sea and
instead tower over the top of the platform while it floats on the surface of
the water. Despite being very unstable, doing this allows the rig to be
towed (by tugs) to the location where it is supposed to drill next.
Jack-ups are triangular in shape with a leg (called a chord) in each corner.
The front of the rig (the pointy end) is called the forward (sometimes
abbreviated to Fwd) or Bow. This is the end that goes first when the rig is
being towed. The back of the rig (the flat end) is called
the Aft or Stern. When you face the Fwd, the side on your left is called
the Port side and the side on your right is called the Starboard side (often
abbreviated to Stbd). This is the same on a ship. The Fwd normally has
the accommodation and helipad. The Aft is where the drilling happens.
The three legs are what give the jack-up its name. They can be raised and
lowered on ratchets in a process known as jacking up or jacking
down. During jacking up, the legs go down and the rig goes up. During
jacking down, the legs go up and the rig goes down until it floats on the
surface of the water, then the legs continue to travel up until they tower
above it. The verticals that form the outside of the lattice are
called chords. Legs can have a square cross-section with four chords, or a
triangular cross-section with three chords. The feet of the legs, known
as spud cans, are designed to sink a little into the seabed for stability.
Pipes known as jetting lines go down the chords to the spud cans. These
pipes can deliver a trickle of water to the spud cans that agitates the sand
and mud around them, allowing the spud cans to bed themselves into the
seabed when arriving at a location, or free themselves more easily when
leaving a location.
Just like a ship, a jack-up has large tanks built into the structure. When the
rig is jacked down, its hull floats on the surface of the water like a ship.
The ballast tanks can be flooded with water or pumped free of water to
control its buoyancy. This is called ballasting. The system that controls
the flow of ballast water into the ballast tanks is the ballast system. When
the rig is on a new location, it jacks-up. But, to ensure that the legs are
standing in a secure position before jacking all the way up, the Barge
Master will do something known as pre-loading. He/she makes the rig
much heavier by pumping water into pre-load tanks. This drives the spud
cans down into the mud or sand. If one of the spud cans penetrates a
false bottom in the seabed and falls deeper, this is known as punch
through. The whole rig will jolt and severe permanent damage can be
caused to the jacking chords and other parts of the rig. Punch through is
to be avoided, but it’s better to discover weaknesses in the seabed during
the pre-loading phase than after you’ve started drilling. That’s why they
do pre-loading.
The derrick is where all the drilling equipment is located. If the rig is not
precisely where the well needs to be drilled, it’s important that the derrick
can easily move forward, backwards and side-to-side to get the drilling
equipment exactly where you need it. This also allows several wells to be
drilled by the same rig, just a few feet apart. The cantilever deck is a
whole deck that slides backwards and forwards, left and right, at the Aft of
the rig to get the derrick in place. The sliding process is known
as skidding and it’s controlled by gears and motors a bit like a horizontal
version of jacking. The left-right movement is controlled by
the transverse skidding system and the forward-backward movement by
the longitudinal skidding system. The part of the cantilever deck under
and around the derrick, where the drilling activities take place, is called
the rig floor.
Overview of Gas lift-well
[Link]
3-operational-field-procedure-for-identifying-selecting-and-optimizing-a-gas-lift-
well/
Lighting on telecommunication room