CHINESE yard CIMC Raffles has won a contract from Italian oil and gas contractor Saipem to convert its semi-submersible drilling rig Scarabeo 5 into a floating production unit (FPU) for operations offshore West Africa.

The order is the first of its kind in the world and is hailed as an important milestone in the offshore oil and gas industry, Shenzhen Economic Daily reported yesterday.

It also serves as a guiding example for the conversion of aging platforms worldwide and signifies a new breakthrough for CIMC Raffles, a subsidiary of Shenzhen-based China International Marine Containers (Group) Ltd. (CIMC), in oil and gas projects.

The donor vessel is a fourth-generation semi-submersible drilling platform measuring 111.64 meters long and 68.8 meters wide. It has a maximum operating water depth of 2,000 meters and a maximum drilling depth of 9,000 meters.

The main task of the conversion activities is to dismantle all of the drilling system, repair and refurnish the marine system, and install new modules for oil and gas processing and pressurization.

After adding a floating hull structure, it will become an offshore oil and gas floating production unit that will be installed and commissioned in a Congo offshore oil field.

CIMC Raffles and Saipem have a long history of cooperation.

Even in the early years of China’s offshore engineering companies going global, the two companies collaborated in the fields of deepwater drilling platforms and specialized vessels.

In 2022, they inked leasing agreements for a 300-foot (91.44 meters) and a 400-foot jack-up drilling rig owned by CIMC.

The scope of cooperation between the two companies has expanded from drilling platforms and asset operation to the conversion of oil and gas production platforms in recent years.

“CIMC Raffles has accumulated rich experiences in the design and construction of deepwater drilling platforms over the past couple of years and is a well-deserved expert in this field,” CIMC Raffles said in a statement.

“We are confident that we can deliver another quality project for our old friend Saipem, providing efficient and safe equipment for the production of oil and gas fields in the waters of Congo.” (Yang Yunfei)