ST Engineering completes upgrades on Diamond Offshore’s drillship

ST Engineering Halter Marine and Offshore, a company of ST Engineering North America, has installed a 215 mt NOV passive heave compensator on Diamond Offshore’s Ocean BlackLion drillship.

ST Engineering said that the Ocean BlackLion arrived in its deepwater facility in Pascagoula, Mississippi, in early May. Shipyard cranes were used to support the NOV with all modifications required to suit the new equipment.

“This contract represents the third Diamond Offshore drillship performing similar upgrades at this facility over the last year,” the company said.

The shipyard also installed an MPD piping system and a ballast water treatment system, both systems were 3D laser scanned and engineered in-house aboard Diamond Offshore vessels during previous projects to avoid interference.  

Aside from this, ST Engineering fabricated miscellaneous platforms, performed upgrades to the ballast water treatment system, and relocated the firewater system piping, in addition to painting the exterior hull. The company also devised a custom solution for a mechanical tie-in for the ballast water treatment system to avoid disrupting the internal coating systems.

According to ST Engineering, this is the third drillship, and fifth working deepwater drilling rig, to visit the shipyard under contract to work in the Gulf of Mexico over the last six months.

As per the most recent Diamond Offshore’s fleet status report, the Ocean BlackLion was expected to start its two-year contract with BP in the Gulf of Mexico in mid-July.

AIS data from VesselsValue puts the drillship in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico’s Mississippi Canyon Block 579, having recently arrived from Pascagoula.