Drillship 'West Capella' arrives in Busan for Blue Whale Project

‘West Capella,’ a drillship to look for oil and gas in front of Yeongil Bay in Pohang, has entered the Namoe Port in Busan.

According to the Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy and the Korea National Oil Corporation on Monday, West Capella entered port around 6 a.m. and will dock at Busan's outer port and load materials needed for drilling from Busan New Port for seven to eight days. Once the supplying work is completed, the ship will depart for the drilling area within this month and launch full-scale drilling operations.

The government estimates that it will take about two months to obtain the sample rock layer, as it requires digging more than 1 kilometer below sea level. The mud logging work will be handled by Schlumberger, the world's No. 1 drilling company. Mud logging refers to the process of analyzing and recording the components of rocks and gas mined during the drilling process to understand the stratum structure.

West Capella belongs to the offshore drilling company Norwegian Sea Drill and has a maximum drilling capacity of 37,500 feet. This drillship was built and delivered by Samsung Heavy Industries in December 2008 and has been mainly used in the waters of Southeast Asia and West Africa.

However, the recent issuance of martial law suggests that it will not be easy to secure a drilling budget for the ‘Blue Whale Project (East Sea deep-sea oil and gas field)’ next year. The Democratic Party of Korea approved next year's budget reduction plan at the Budget and Accounts Special Committee last month on its own, and the entire budget of 49.7 billion won for the first drilling project was withdrawn. The government plans to convince the National Assembly of the need for the first drilling budget before next year's budget is submitted to the plenary session of the National Assembly. With the impeachment in process, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and Korea National Oil Corporation have begun quiet preparations for drilling without issuing any press release that had been planned for West Capella’s arrival.


세종=이호 기자 number2@donga.com