WA drillship is a merchant vessel designed for use in exploratory offshore drilling of new oil and gas wells or for scientific drilling purposes. In most recent years the vessels are used in deepwater and ultra-deepwater applications, equipped with the latest and most advanced dynamic positioning systems.
WChikyū (ちきゅう) is a Japanese scientific drilling ship built for the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP). The vessel is designed to ultimately drill 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) beneath the seabed, where the Earth's crust is much thinner, and into the Earth's mantle, deeper than any other hole drilled in the ocean thus far.
WDiscoverer Clear Leader is a double hulled dynamically positioned drillship, capable of operating in moderate environments and water depths up to 12,000 feet (3,657m) using an 18.75 in (47.6 cm), 15,000 psi blowout preventer (BOP), and a 21 in (53 cm) outside diameter (OD) marine riser. The Marshall Islands-flagged vessel is owned by Transocean, and is operating in the Gulf of Mexico of the United States.
WDiscoverer Enterprise is a fifth generation deepwater double hulled dynamically positioned drillship owned and operated by Transocean Offshore Deepwater Drilling Inc., capable of operating in moderate environments and water depths up to 3,049 m (10,000 ft) using an 18.75 in (47.6 cm), 15,000 psi blowout preventer (BOP), and a 21 in (53 cm) outside diameter (OD) marine riser. From 1998 to 2005 the vessel was Panama-flagged and currently flies the flag of convenience of the Marshall Islands.
WGSF Explorer, formerly USNS Hughes Glomar Explorer (T-AG-193), was a deep-sea drillship platform built for Project Azorian, the secret 1974 effort by the United States Central Intelligence Agency's Special Activities Division to recover the Soviet submarine K-129.
WThe riserless research vessel JOIDES Resolution, often referred to as the JR, is one of the scientific drilling ships used by the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP), an international, multi-drilling platform research program. The JR was previously the main research ship used during the Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) and was used along with the Japanese drilling vessel Chikyu and other mission-specific drilling platforms throughout the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program. She is the successor of Glomar Challenger.
WKanuni is a Turkey-flagged sixth-generation ultra deepwater drillship owned and operated by the Turkish Petroleum Corporation. She is Turkey's third drillship.
WKulluk was an ice-strengthened drill barge that was used for oil exploration in the Arctic waters. She was constructed by Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding in Japan in 1983 and operated in the Canadian Arctic until 1993 when she was mothballed for over a decade. In 2005, she was purchased and extensively refurbished by Royal Dutch Shell for the drilling operations off the northern coast of Alaska.
WProject Mohole was an attempt in the early 1960s to drill through the Earth's crust to obtain samples of the Mohorovičić discontinuity, or Moho, the boundary between the Earth's crust and mantle. The project was intended to provide an earth science complement to the high-profile Space Race. While such a project was not feasible on land, drilling in the open ocean was more feasible, because the mantle lies much closer to the sea floor.