China building world’s largest deep-water drilling vessel

The newbuilding will cost more than $500 million and will be the first deep-water drilling vessel built by China. Construction of the 290m long, 50m wide vessel, which started recently, is expected to be completed in 2012 and is designed to hold up to one million barrels of crude oil.

The vessel will work in waters of up to 10,000 feet in depth and can drill to depths of over 30,000 feet.