Australian Seabed Survey: Finding Out What's Down Under

摘要

Editor's note: As pipeliners know, because of the high economic and environmental cost associated with the failure of an offshore oil or gas pipeline, its route to shore needs to be as safe and stable as possible. Patrick Fournier, senior geophysicist with Australia s Neptune Marine Services, explains the need for good quality survey data from beneath the seabed. Australia's North West Shelf (NWS) is an isolated offshore geographic province extending 2,400-km along the northwest margin of the continent. It is Australia's largest oil and gas region. 82-84 Keppel FELS Delivers New Semi Ahead Of Schedule Queiroz Galvao Oleo e Gas (QGOG), the largest privately held drilling contractor and provider of drilling and production services in Brazil, has named its newly built, ultra-deepwater dynamically positioned semi-submersible drilling rig, Alpha Star. The Alpha Star was delivered in March, four months ahead of schedule by Keppel FELS in Singapore and is leased to Petrobras for a six-year period with a renewal option for an additional six years. The Alpha Star is a sixth-generation, ultra-deepwater, state-of-the-art semi-submersible drilling rig. Its Gusto DSS-38 design has been enhanced based on operating experience from the company's semi-submersible rig, Gold Star. Alpha Star is rated for water depth of 9,000 feet and drilling depth of 30,000 feet.