DNV GL has welcomed the world’s largest semi-submersible drilling rig into class recently. Ocean Greatwhite is 123 meters long and 78 meters wide and was delivered at Hyundai Heavy Industries in Ulsan, South Korea in mid-July.

Owned by the Houston-based drilling contractor Diamond Offshore, the rig will be chartered to oil major BP and will operate in the Great Australian Bight.

The rig is to be a new design MOSS CS60E semi-submersible drilling unit suitable for operations in harsh environments, which is the first MOSS CS60E and the largest rig in the world.

“The Ocean GreatWhite is a unique rig purposely built for drilling in harsh environments,” said Karl Sellers, SVP Technical Services at Diamond Offshore. “HHI and DNV GL were integral in helping us get this rig to market as we prepare for the drilling project in Australia with BP.”

“We are proud to deliver the first drilling ship of this size and look forward to many more projects on this scale,” Youngseuk Han, Senior Executive Vice President at HHI said.

“Ocean Greatwhite is capable of operating in depths of up to 3000 meters and can drill down to a depth of 10,670 meters. It represents the state of the art in the semi-submersible sector and we are very pleased to have been asked to contribute our expertise to this project,” says Paal Johansen, Vice President and Regional Director, Americas at DNV GL.

According to DNV GL, Ocean Greatwhite is also the first new-build rig to receive the DNV GL Integrated Software Dependent Systems (ISDS) notation. ISDS are systems whose performance is dependent on the overall behavior of their integrated software components. DNV GL stated that its ISDS standard helps owners and operators minimize software integration errors and delays in projects involving complex integrated systems.

The certification ensures that software and integration issues are identified and resolved early on during the project design stages, DNV GL explained. It also represents a new approach to verification, as it emphasizes a review of the working methods and processes that lead to the delivery the systems, rather than simply focusing on the final review of documents and installations to ensure they meet product requirements, the classification body noted.

“We expect that the operational performance of Ocean Greatwhite will demonstrate how the ISDS notation can contribute to increasing the reliability of the complex systems onboard,” adds Paal Johansen.

DNV GL’s ISDS teams in Korea, Norway, and the USA all contributed to the project. DNV GL also provided advisory services to HHI on the integration of the various systems throughout the newbuilding process.