Diamond launches new service aimed at reducing BOP downtime

Houston-based offshore drilling contractor Diamond Offshore Drilling has launched its Sim-Stack service. According to Diamond, this is the offshore drilling industry’s first cybernetic BOP service enabling the company to continuously and accurately assess BOP status.

When issues arise, the Sim-Stack service immediately determines a proper course of action while providing a third party statement of fact to the operator, BSEE, and other regulatory bodies, the driller explained on Tuesday.

Further explaining its new service Diamond said that, acting as the “virtual twin” of a BOP system on a drilling vessel, Sim-Stack replicates the BOP hydraulically and electrically to assess its overall health and regulatory compliance. When component failures are identified, Sim-Stack provides critical feedback without human bias in a systematic method to make informed subsea stack decisions, the company said.

“The majority of non-productive time for an offshore drilling rig relates to subsea equipment certification, repair and maintenance,” said Marc Edwards, President and CEO of Diamond Offshore.

“We have been driving innovation and thought leadership into the industry so as to reduce costs. Our Sim-Stack service is our latest advancement to reduce BOP downtime, resulting in operational efficiency gains for our clients.”

Moreover, Diamond said that Sim-Stack serves as a training tool for offshore personnel to learn and further develop subsea BOP expertise in a safe and dynamic environment, similar to simulated flight training in the aviation industry.

“We are not only focused on innovative solutions to improve the economics of offshore drilling,” Edwards said.

“We are also building a robust set of tools to train and further develop our technical talent to efficiently execute our operational responsibilities, and Sim-Stack is a premier tool to drive this talent development to the next level.”

In conjunction with BOP Risk Mitigation Services LLC, Diamond Offshore developed and implemented this new service across all eight BOP systems on its four dynamically positioned drillships working in the Gulf of Mexico. In the coming months, the company plans to expand this service to additional rigs in its global fleet.