IODP Awarded DeepStar Funding for Ultra-Deepwater Drilling Studies

The Integrated Ocean Drilling Program, supported by 22 countries worldwide, has been awarded funding by the DeepStar consortium for studies to allow deep-hole drilling in ultra-deepwater. The research will be conducted in the Gulf of Mexico.

Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) Management International has successfully competed for funding to support feasibility studies and plannig of ultra-deepwater dual gradient drilling, utilizing the AGR Drilling Services riserless mud recovery system. The awarded funds come from the DeepStar consortium, a deepwater industry group that supports deepwaer technology development projects and leverages the industry's financial and technical resources. The winning project, a collabroation among several US-based IODP partners, AGR Drilling services and industry, will investigate modification of existing commercial technology to allow deep-hole drilling (greater than 2,000 meters) in ultra-deepwater.

"This approach represents a major advance," explains IODP-MI Engineering Manager Greg Myers, who heads the project. "It eliminates mud and cuttings discharges at the seafloor and provides a cost-saving mud-control technique in the top hole section of ultra-deepwater wells. Also, it will grant access to areas of scientific exploration previously beyond our reach."

According to Myers, the next step of the initiative will be to prepare an at-sea deomonstration of the technology in the Gulf of Mexico. The JOIDES Resolution, the riserless drillng vessel dedicated to IODP research through support from th US National Science Foundation, is the most likely platform to be chosen for this engineering initiative.

The IODP is an international marine research drilling program dedicated to advancing scientific understanding of earth by drilling, sampling and monitoring subseafloor environments. Through multiple platforms, the world's preeminent scientists explore IODP principle themes: the deep biosphere, environmental change and geodynamics. Curretly 21 countries support and participate in IODP research activities. Find out more about IODP and this initiative by visiting OTC booth #10338.

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