Vantage Drilling announced that the Titanium Explorer, which was acquired in April 2012, mobilized to the United States Gulf of Mexico, to commence an eight year contract with Petrobras.
Acceptance testing with the customer was interrupted during the third quarter by Hurricane Isaac, which necessitated sailing out of harm’s way and further disrupted the supply chain and vendor access to the Titanium Explorer for more than a week.
Most of the testing protocol has now been completed successfully, including third party certification of the BOP.
The functional tests of the BOP in deepwater were unfortunately interrupted by operational issues of the customer-supplied ROV. The ROV cameras and robotics are essential to complete the seafloor testing of the equipment. Vantage Drilling lost approximately ten days of testing associated with the ROV issues.
During the testing delays, the company also noted an engine issue aboard the Titanium Explorer. After consultation with the engine manufacturer, it was decided that it would be prudent to not only repair the problem, but to undertake a preventative upgrade recommended by the manufacturer to all six primary engines onboard.
The repair and upgrade is being conducted currently and is expected to be completed in the third week of November.
The company expects to commence operations under the drilling contract in December.
“ We are clearly disappointed by the disruptions and delays we have encountered commencing operations for the Titanium Explorer, but we believe we are very close to a successful commencement of our contract. The crew and support team has done an outstanding job preparing the Titanium Explorer and dealing with the adversities encountered, ” commented Paul Bragg, CEO of Vantage Drilling .
[mappress] Subsea World News Staff , November 12, 2012