The new design of the UDW Drillship "Overdrill" delivered by Fincantieri is conceived to reach a maximum drilling depth of 50.000 ft with 12.000 ft of water depth. One of the main inputs set to implement the Drillship concept has been to increase the operational drilling loads while one of the main constrain has been to limit the size of the vessel without affecting the operational free areas of the open decks.
The above mentioned target has been achieved thanks to the integration of the drilling equipment into the hull and thanks to a co-design shared with the drill vendor and with other technological partners. The final result of this approach has been to significantly lower the Drillship center of gravity and to increase the variable deck load.
At the same time a particular focus has been put to automatize the systems on board supporting the drilling operation outside the drill tower and to enrich the design with solutions aimed to reduce the operational downtimes and to improve the safety life onboard as well.
Thanks to the characteristics obtained (e.g. higher stability, large operational spaces, increased variable deck load, improved sea keeping) the vessel may also be easily further upgraded in relation to possible future evolutions of drilling systems which may imply the installation of larger size/weights equipment.
