The growth in the use of drillships for deepwater activity sparked a rash of newbuilds by contractors several years ago, leading to a number of ultra-high spec units arriving on the market in 1998 and 1999. Operators were keen to use them on their bulging portfolios of deepwater prospects - but a couple of incidents towards the end of last year involving two different units has tempered their enthusiasm somewhat.

The two drillships concerned - R&B Falcon/Conoco's Deepwater Pathfinder and Pride International's Pride Africa - hit the headlines for the wrong reasons recently when both ended up dropping a heap of equipment on the seabed.
Investigations are still ongoing into the incidents, Hart's E&P understands, and so obviously at this stage operators are still sitting back to wait and see what the given reasons for the incidents were. This is not surprising, considering the major cost involved when drilling a deepwater well. Oil companies cannot afford too many similar incidents to occur.
However, it appears clear that the two incidents - although finishing up pretty much with the same end results - were not caused by the same problem, and this will ease the fears of those who worried that there may have been more of a generic problem with the drillship concepts.
Concerning the Deepwater Pathfinder, a hugely impressive piece of offshore kit with many technological innovations on board, the incident happened in October when 20 joints from the vessel's riser as well as its blowout prevention (BOP) equipment fell to the seabed in 7,000ft (2,134m) of water in the US Gulf of Mexico while working on the Phoenix field in Mississippi Canyon block 1002 under a farm-out agreement for Chevron.
Charles Ofner, senior vice president of R&B Falcon, was quick to point the finger at a possible failure in the drawworks braking system, which sparked the incident, he said. But no further information or official reason has yet been given to back this up.
The newbuild's top drive and traveling equipment sustained damage, with the rig today still in Galveston, Texas, where it is undergoing repairs, which should be completed soon.
Although recovery of the lost equipment was a possibility, R&B Falcon opted instead to replace the parts with items from other rigs currently under development as raiding those units for parts would have no impact on their delivery dates, said Ofner.
The Deepwater Pathfinder itself is operated under a long-term bareboat charter by Deepwater Drilling LLC, in which affiliates of Conoco and R&B Falcon each own a 50% interest.

Deja vu?
Amazingly, just a couple of weeks later a different drillship hit the headlines when the Pride Africa also lost its BOP equipment and riser into the ocean depths offshore Angola.
Pride International stated at the time that the vessel's top drive drilling system and drilling line were damaged, and its BOP equipment fell to the sea floor along with a limited amount of riser.
The contractor recently undertook a retrieval mission to recover the riser which was lying in 5,400ft (1,646m) of water, damaged beyond repair. The vessel was on site again as Hart's E&P went to press, trying to retrieve the BOP, which is also expected to be damaged. The contractor is restoring the vessel with new parts in time for an April redelivery date.
Gary Casswell, vice president of the eastern hemisphere for Pride Forasol/Foramer, said after the incident itself: "The plan is for new equipment. The contingency is if we got lucky and retrieved it and it wasn't too badly damaged."
However that isn't expected to be the case now, Casswell admitted to Hart's E&P. He was still reluctant to comment on the cause of the accident at this time, saying only that the investigation was ongoing and that things would be clearer probably this month. But it is understood at present that no reason has yet been found for why the drill line parted.
The damage occurred as the BOP was being removed from the sea floor and not during drilling operations, according to the contractor.
The vessel underwent minor repairs in Cape Town, South Africa, before heading back for the initial recovery operation in December. The newbuild drillship is on a 5 year contract with Elf for work offshore Angola, but Pride says Elf's drilling program will not be adversely affected by the delay.
This double dent in the pride of drillship operators is unlikely to prove damaging in the long term.