VietNamNet Bridge – Vietnam is building a jack-up rig with modern technologies based on a design from American firm Friede & Goldman, which provided the design specifications for the Chinese HD 981 oil rig.

The Vietnam National Oil and Gas Group (PetroVietnam), Vietsovpetro (the main investor) and PV Shipyard in October held a keel laying ceremony for the Tam Dao 05 oil rig after five months of construction.

Tam Dao 05 is a jack-up rig, designed in accordance with Friede and Goldman’s JU-2000E model. It is expected to have a total 18,000 tonnage when it is built, capable of operating at a depth of 120 meters or 400 ft below water, and will be able to drill at a depth of 9,000 meters, or 30,000 ft.

Tam Dao 05 is expected to have a value of $230 million, while the building is scheduled to be completed after 32 months of execution.

This is the second jack-up rig domestically manufactured by subsidiaries of PetroVietnam. The first was Tam Dao 03 which was put into operation in 2012.

Nguyen Xuan Son, president of PetroVietnam, emphasized that the building of Tam Dao 05 has special significance because it contributes to energy security and shows sovereignty over national natural resources.

Meanwhile, scientists have said that Tam Dao 05 shows an important step forward in the Vietnamese energy industry.

Vu Ngoc Hoan from PV Shipyard said in Dat Viet that Tam Dao 05 can move easily on the sea, and can be used specifically in oil and gas exploration and oil well repair.

With Tam Dao 05, Vietsovpetro, a major oil exploiter in Vietnam, will be able to take initiative for its work, because it will no longer have to charter rigs from foreign sources.

Do Thai Binh, a renowned marine expert, said Vietnam now can say that it has mastered technologies to build modern oil rigs.

Binh said that jack-up rigs are used mostly to exploit oil near the shore, like the White Tiger and Dai Hung oil fields.

In order to exploit oil offshore at a depth of 1,000 meters, like in the Hoang Sa and Truong Sa archipelagos, Vietnam will need other offshore units, such as semi-submersible rigs.

The HD 981 (Haiyang Shiyou 981) that China deployed in the Vietnamese Hoang Sa archipelago in May 2014 was a semi-submersible rig.

However, Binh said that HD 981 is not a product “completely designed and manufactured in China and by Chinese” as reported by Chinese media.

In fact, China bought the design of the oil rig from Friede & Goldman and built the rig in China.

Binh noted that it was encouraging for Vietnamese manufacturers to successfully manufacture Tam Dao 05, a modern oil rig with a US design. This shows that young Vietnamese engineers can do big things if they are well organized.

He went on to say that it is necessary to encourage the design and manufacture of other units for oil exploitation.

Following the success with Tam Dao 05, Vietnam has shown that it is capable of building bigger oil rigs to operate in deeper areas.

Dat Viet