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A drillship is a merchant vessel designed for use in exploratory offshore drilling of new oil and gas wells or for scientific drilling purposes. In recent years the vessels have been used in deepwater and ultra-deepwater applications, equipped with the latest and most advanced dynamic positioning systems. The first drillship was the CUSS I, designed by Robert F. Bauer of Global Marine in 1955. The CUSS I had drilled in 400-foot-deep waters by 1957. Robert F. Bauer became the first president of Global Marine in 1958. In 1961 Global Marine started a new drillship era. They ordered several self-propelled drillships each with a rated centerline drilling of 20,000 foot-wells in water depths of 600 feet. The first was named CUSS (Glomar) II, a 5,500-deadweight-ton vessel, costing around $4.5 million. Built by a Gulf Coast shipyard, the vessel was almost twice the size of the CUSS I, and became the world's first drillship built as a new construction which set sail in 1962. In 1962, The Offshore Company elected to build a new type of drillship, larger than that of the Glomar class. This new drillship would feature a first-ever anchor mooring array based on a unique turret system. The vessel was named Discoverer I. The Discoverer I had no main propulsion engines, meaning it needed to be towed out to the drill site. A drillship can be used as a platform to carry out well maintenance or completion work such as casing and tubing installation, subsea tree installations, and well capping. Drillships are often built to the design specifications set by the oil production company and/or investors. From the first drillship CUSS I to the Deepwater Asgard, the fleet size has been growing ever since. In 2013 the worldwide fleet of drillships topped 80 ships, more than double its size in 2009. Drillships are not only growing in size but also in capability, with new technology assisting operations from academic research to ice-breaker class drilling vessels. U.S. President Barack Obama's decision in late March 2010 to expand U.S.

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Related concepts (2)

Offshore geotechnical engineering

Offshore geotechnical engineering is a sub-field of geotechnical engineering. It is concerned with foundation design, construction, maintenance and decommissioning for human-made structures in the sea. Oil platforms, artificial islands and submarine pipelines are examples of such structures. The seabed has to be able to withstand the weight of these structures and the applied loads. Geohazards must also be taken into account.

Oil platform

An oil platform (also called an oil rig, offshore platform, oil production platform, etc.) is a large structure with facilities to extract and process petroleum and natural gas that lie in rock formations beneath the seabed. Many oil platforms will also have facilities to accommodate the workers, although it is also common to have a separate accommodation platform bridge linked to the production platform. Most commonly, oil platforms engage in activities on the continental shelf, though they can also be used in lakes, inshore waters, and inland seas.