A massive offshore drilling platform is set to be refurbished in Belfast in the next few weeks. Aberdeen-based Dolphin Drilling Ltd awarded Harland & Wolff the multi-million-pound contract for the dry-docking of the Blackford Dolphin rig earlier this year.
The work is expected to take almost two months to complete. The platform is currently on its way from Brazil, and it will be redeployed in the North Sea. When it arrives in early December, it will be accommodated in the world’s longest dock.
David McVeigh, head of sales at the shipyard, said: “Harland & Wolff continues to compete successfully in a sector that has seen competition grow. Apart from being able to exceed the stringent health-and-safety requirements for such contracts, H&W is also capable of great flexibility — we can put 600 electrical, welding, engineering and painting contractors in place in a short time.”
The 360ft-tall Blackford Dolphin is too big to fit beneath the firm’s Samson and Goliath cranes, which will have to be moved along their tracks to the city end of the building dock for the duration of the refurbishment contract.
Mr McVeigh said that the company’s work on another vessel last year helped it to win this contract. “The one-month project on the SeaRose floating production, storage and offloading vessel for Husky Energy of Canada was completed four days early and under budget. Winning and delivering that project in the way that we did was a real ‘game-changer’.”