High spec Keppel liftboat

The liftboat is designed by Keppel O&M’s liftboat design specialist, Bennett Offshore in collaboration with Keppel FELS. Scheduled for delivery in the last quarter of 2017, the liftboat will have provisions enabling it to operate in China, the Middle East and the Gulf of Mexico.

Mr Wong Kok Seng, managing director of Keppel O&M (Offshore) and Keppel FELS, said: “We have leveraged our jackup rig technologies and expertise to develop our own series of liftboat designs that is able to value add to the industry. For instance, it will have a higher freeboard for safer operations and retractable spud cans flushed to the bottom of the rig’s hull which reduces drag when transiting between locations.”

Keppel’s self-elevating and self-propelled liftboat design is capable of operating at a water depth of up to 60m. It will be equipped with a 280-tonne deck crane enabling it to undertake the maintenance of most shallow water oil and gas fields and windfarms and various workover drilling operations and well intervention applications.

The liftboat is installed with Keppel’s patented and proven jacking system designed by subsidiary Offshore Technology Development which has been used previously on the Seafox 5 offshore wind turbine installer. The vessel can complete over a hundred jacking cycles in a year, equivalent to what a typical drilling rig does over a 20 year period.

In addition to this latest contract, Keppel’s joint venture shipyard in Qatar, Nakilat-Keppel Offshore & Marine Ltd (N-KOM), is also building a similar vessel for a Qatari oilfield service company.