Geo and NCT Offshore Team Up with New Drillship

Danish engineering consultancy Geo and NCT Offshore have launched the drillship Freja as part of a new strategic collaboration.

Freja is an S-Class ROV support DP2 vessel, and according to Geo is the only drillship of its calibre and type in the Nordic countries after the rebuild.

The drilling setup aboard Freja is based on a system designed to provide optimised heave compensated drilling conditions.

Department director in Geo’s Marine Survey, Jens Brink Clausen, explains the design: “The system is built up around a specially designed active heave compensated working platform (HCP). The principle of the system is that the entire drilling floor, including drill rig and drillers, is heave compensated to move with the movement of the ship. This means that the working deck is stationary, while the vessel follows the movements of the waves. Being able to work offshore from a stationary deck means that we are able to apply drilling techniques usually limited to onshore drilling. On conventional vessels, only the drill string itself is usually heave compensated.”

Geo’s setup is designed and optimised to operate on water depths for offshore wind projects (approximately 15-60 m water), and is optimised for geotechnical- and core drilling (GeoBor-S). The drilling methods ensure much higher sample quality than the quality usually attainable with traditional drillship solutions, which apply the so called ‘piggy back’ approach, Geo noted.

One of the biggest features of the heave compensated setup on the vessel Freja is a flexible solution, which can undertake a range of technical services ranging from geotechnical drilling in soil and rock using the Geobor-S system to a range of CPT (Cone Penetration Tests) and Vibrocore rigs. Additionally, the vessel is optimised for a geophysical spread including side scan sonar, sub bottom profiler, magnetometer and hull mounted multibeam echo sounder. “Geo expects that this multipurpose vessel will provide a cost effective flexible setup, which can be individualised to each project. We expect that Freja will deliver a top level performance at station keeping, which will ensure large working slots, due to the powerful DP2 arrangement,” Brink Clausen elaborates.

CEO at NCT Offshore, Paw Cortes, said:. “NCT Offshore looks forward to our new partnership with Geo. We have many of the same core values, for example in regards to HSE. Furthermore, Geo is market leading in their field and we are proud to be Geo’s chosen partner.”

Department director in Geo’s Marine Survey, Jens Brink Clausen, added: “The newly established alliance between Geo and NCT Offshore will strengthen both parties, as the companies’ services complement each other well. Geo has one of the industry’s longest track records in relation to geotechnical site investigations for offshore wind projects. NCT Offshore on the other hand has the right DP2 vessel to operate as platform for Geo’s geotechnical drilling and seabed equipment.”

Source: Geo