OREANDA-NEWS.  In the Nauta Shipyard of Gdynia, an overhaul of the LOTOS Petrobaltic drilling rig, undertaken to renew the rig’s classification certificate, has been completed. All work was designed to further improve safety-at-work and environmental performance.

The rig is ready to come online, and initial production from the B8 field is expected to start in Q4 2015.

Once the overhaul had been completed, the rig was towed to the Gaz Po?udnie licence site, where preparatory work for drilling the B21-3 appraisal well commenced.

 “The well will be drilled in 75 days. It is the last well to be drilled in this formation to estimate the size of gas/condensate accumulation,” says Krzysztof Kielas, Chief Drilling Officer at LOTOS Petrobaltic. "Our next task will be to drill the B8-Z6 well. It is a water injection well, the last one on the B8 field."

The entire towing operation took approximately 48 hours, including the time needed for positioning and preloading, i.e. ballasting and stabilising of the rig at the stopover point.

 “The towing operation went according to plan,” says the tow master, Captain Leszek Szymborski. “The towing distance from the Nauta shipyard in Gdynia to the licence site was over 146 km, and the average towing speed was 4.5 knots.”

Following the overhaul, the rig received a classification certificate confirming its proper technical condition. The rig’s five-year class certification process was supervised by the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS).

“The scope of work included primarily repair and strengthening of the spud can, repair, replacement and painting of plating and ballast tanks, as well as maintenance, cleaning and replacement of the travel system of the rig proper,” explains Bartosz Brosowski, Technical Director at LOTOS Petrobaltic.