On March 30, 2012, a ceremony to hand over the 90 meter Self-elevating Jack-up Offshore Drilling Unit - Tam Dao 03 to VietsovPetro was held at the PetroVietnam Marine Shipyard Joint Stock Company (PV Shipyard) in Vung Tau City, Ba Ria - Vung Tau Province after 24 months of construction. This is the first time such a project has been completed in Vietnam.
At the transfer ceremony, representatives from PV Shipyard said that since 2007 when PV Shipyard was founded, experts and engineers in marine drilling rig supposed that Vietnam would not able to construct a jack-up drilling rig. These comments had good reasons since at that time Vietnam lacked favorable conditions, technologies and experience to make a jack-up drilling rig.
In such a context, the choice to construct a 90 meter jack-up drilling rig was thought to be a "risky" decision. However, with the help of Vietnam Oil and Gas Group- PetroVietnam (PVN) and the National Research Institute of Mechanical Engineering (NARIME) under the project "Research, design technologies to build 90 meter jack-up rig in Vietnamese conditions", the first 90 meter jack-up rig in Vietnam was chosen to be conducted researches and constructed on April 2, 2010. As a project of national importance, the construction of the rig was funded a total VND112.88 billion by the State scientific budget for programs which included training engineers both at home and abroad, purchasing soft wares and hard wares for the design and construction of the drilling rig, technology transfer and doing research studies related to the 90 meter jack-up rig.
After 24 months of construction, thanks to great efforts of all parties involved in the project, in September 2011, the first 90 meters self-elevating jack-up offshore drilling unit in Vietnam was successfully completed. This is the project that demanded high technology with an enormous 9,685 tonnes of composition, 950 tonnes of pipes and 1,748 tonnes of various equipment
With a 145 meter jacket weighing nearly 12,000 tonnes, the Tam Dao 3 is able to drill wells up to a depth of 6,100m. The rig has helped Vietnam become one of the top ten countries in the world to build jack-up drilling rigs up to international standard.
Following the success of the 90 meter jack-up rig, the Deputy Director of PetroVietnam Department of Science and Technology Nguyen Van Tuan affirmed that the NARIME's science and technology project has made practical and effective contributions to the construction of the drilling rig, especially in terms of rate of progress, quality and rate of localization. Scientific experts completed more than 90 percent of their assigned works and were highly appreciated by PV Shipyard intermediate examination council. Many of their subjects were applied in the designs, building and manufacturing process of the Tam Dao 03. It is expected that a group of Vietnamese technical staff is improving their professional qualifications and skills to step by step replace foreign experts in the coming projects of PVN.
Sharing the same view, Nguyen Chi Sang, the Director of NARIME said with the success of the 90 meters jack-up rig and other marine mechanical products, Vietnamese mechanical enterprises are definitely able to provide 50 percent of their products to the market in stead of the current rate of 30 percent. He also affirmed Vietnamese intellectuals are in no way inferior to those from other countries with developed mechanical engineering sector. Particularly, the success of Tam Dao 03 helped it to be listed in the top 10 science, technology events of 2011./.
