A new Arctic drillship design has been unveiled by Norway’s Inocean, based on the contractor’s INO-80 concept.
The new unit, named ‘IN-ICE’, is completely enclosed and winterized, is environmentally friendly, and has enhanced logistics/ storage facilities, said the company. The drillship design has a PC-4 ice class rating, giving it a substantially extended drilling season for a large part of the Arctic region, it added.

“This gives us the opportunity to keep a conventional bow for operations in rough open water wave conditions, as well as to implement a moderate stern for aft-way operations in managed ice,” said Jørgen Jorde, project manager.

“We envisage the stern more optimized for avoiding ice into the moon pool than for ice breaking, but also because drilling operations in Arctic areas are expected to be conducted primarily in ‘managed ice’. Positioning will be done through thruster-assisted turret mooring in the shallow parts of the operational area, and by dynamic positioning in the deeper parts,” added Jorde.

As there is a lack of experience with dril­ling operations in heavy ice conditions with a floating drilling unit, in addition to the limited qualified rescue and oil collection concepts in ice, Inocean said that it believes a heavy ice class (e.g. PC-1/2) will not come into use “for some years yet”.