ICON completes Extendable Tension Deck for Noble Tom Prosser in 12 weeks

ICON was engaged by Noble Drilling to assist in the conceptual development, detailed design, fabrication, installation and commissioning of a 300Te capacity tension deck for the newly built Noble Tom Prosser jack-up rig.

The entire project from development of concept through to installation and commissioning was undertaken in 12 weeks. This included the fabrication and testing of a 300Te tension unit and a range of ICON's gripper clamps.

The Noble Tom Prosser was contracted to undertake an extended exploration drilling campaign in the North West Shelf of Australia. Part of the requirements of the operation was that the riser and surface BOP had to remain deployed in the event of a cyclone.

Noble contacted ICON to help them develop a concept for a tension deck that could be rapidly deployed and also work within the constraints of having a maximum overall length of 30ft when stowed but needing to achieve a 35ft cantilever when deployed. By calling on ICON's previous experience in the design of tension decks, a new concept was developed that incorporated a sliding section allowing the deck to extend to the required reach when deployed.

Tight timescale

A particularly challenging aspect of this project was the tight timescale. Noble initially contacted ICON in June 2015, and the rig was due to depart Singapore on 1st September. As such, the entire project from development of concept through to installation and commissioning was undertaken in 12 weeks. This included the fabrication and testing of a 300Te tension unit and a range of ICON's gripper clamps.

ICON successfully completed the detailed design, fabrication and installation of the deck within the required timescale with a team of engineers deployed to Singapore to oversee the fabrication and installation.

A key requirement in the deck's design was that it should be as simple to deploy as possible. Based on ICON's extensive experience with drilling rigs, their engineers developed a means of deployment that utilised the existing capabilities of the rig and required no additional equipment or modification. ICON then worked closely with the rig's crew to familiarise them with the offshore deployment procedure. During offshore operations the deck was fully deployed in under 40 minutes.

Tension Deck Data: