CASE STUDY for Specialist Module G - Warranty Surveys including Mobile Offshore Units

You have been instructed by an oil company to attend a Mobile Offshore Drilling Unit during its next transit to a location thirty nautical miles away from its present position in the Caribbean Sea. This rig is under contract to drill seven exploration wells in the oil company's concession block. During the previous two moves there were a number of delays that, from the oil company's point of view, caused the rig to incur three days of operational downtime.

The rig is supported by two 12,000 bhp Anchor Handling Supply Vessels which started their charter with the drilling rig and are due to stay for the entire drilling program. Both rig and the Anchor Handling vessels have worked with this oil company on previous occasions without any major problems but the vessels are much older now than they were at the start of the association between the two companies.

The rig moves are carried out under the direction of the oil company's own marine department and as a consequence, the drilling department of the oil company has asked for your report, as an independent assessor, of the likely causes of the delays, and has asked for your recommendations and advice about the next move.

a) Detail the preparations you will make to conduct such an assessment listing the equipment you would take and the precautions required for working as a surveyor during a rig move.

b) Outline the possible problems you may encounter. In particular list the personnel you would wish to speak to. How will you overcome their possible defensive attitude?

c) Show a detailed format of a report that you would make into the delays using headings and bullet points only and give the possible reasons which are likely to cause such a delay.

Word count target is 3000 words.