Shelf Drilling

Shelf drilling is keeping busy:

I don’t know how many are familiar with Shelf Drilling and their history, but here is a brief history:
In 2012 Transocean decided to “unload” their old jack-up and consecrate on Deepwater. They transferred a number of rigs to a new operating unit, called Shelf Drilling. Many of these rigs came from well known old drilling companies that had been merged into what became Transocean, such as Reading & Bates, Santafe, Global Marine and others (a long list)
They have also added on some new rigs over the years, incl. two brand new “stranded” rigs from a Chinese yard fairly recently.
Here is their Milestones since inception:
https://www.shelfdrilling.com/about-us/milestones/

Looking at their Fleet List is pure nostalgia for me. I have been around on most of these rigs since they were new, both under original ownership and when they came under the Transocean banner:
https://www.shelfdrilling.com/our-fleet/
The oldest one, the Trident 2, was among the first rigs I attended for rig moves as Warranty Surveyor, back in 1975> when she was new and belonged to Sea & Land Drilling, a Schlumberger owned company and was under French flag. She was drilling off Brunei and Sabah for several years.

A little anecdote:
Originally there were wine on the tables for meals, with an Aperitif for senior personnel at 1900 hrs., before dinner at 2000 hrs.
Very civilized, but they had to stop the free wine at meals, since some of the non-French “service hands” couldn’t handle such freedom.

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