''Kanuni'' (ex ''NS37/ Sertão'') is a

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

- flagged sixth-generation ultra deepwater

drillship A drillship is a merchant vessel designed for use in exploratory offshore drilling of new oil and gas wells or for scientific drilling purposes. In recent years the vessels have been used in deepwater and ultra-deepwater applications, equipped ...

owned and operated by the

Turkish Petroleum Corporation TPAO or Turkish Petroleum Corporation has been established in order to perform hydrocarbon exploration, drilling, production, refinery and marketing activities on behalf of the Turkish Republic with the law 6327 in 1954. Many milestones in Turki ...

. She is Turkey's third drillship.

Name

Kanuni means "law-related", "legal" in Turkish and can be used in a wider range of related meanings. The word derives from

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

قَانُون (qānūn), which comes from

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

κανών (kanṓn).Kanuni
/ref> The three drillships of the state-owned Turkish gas company, Fatih, Yavuz and Kanuni, are named after the most famous conquerors and rulers of the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

Mehmed II Mehmed II (; , ; 30 March 14323 May 1481), commonly known as Mehmed the Conqueror (; ), was twice the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from August 1444 to September 1446 and then later from February 1451 to May 1481. In Mehmed II's first reign, ...

, Turkish: Fatih Sultan Mehmet, Mehmed the Conqueror, who conquered Constantinople in 1453;

Selim I Selim I (; ; 10 October 1470 – 22 September 1520), known as Selim the Grim or Selim the Resolute (), was the List of sultans of the Ottoman Empire, sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1512 to 1520. Despite lasting only eight years, his reign is ...

(r. 1512-1520), known as Selim the Resolute, Turkish: Yavuz Sultan Selim, who hugely expanded his empire; and

Suleiman the Magnificent Suleiman I (; , ; 6 November 14946 September 1566), commonly known as Suleiman the Magnificent in the Western world and as Suleiman the Lawgiver () in his own realm, was the List of sultans of the Ottoman Empire, Ottoman sultan between 1520 a ...

(r. 1520-1566), known in Turkish as Kanunî Sultan Süleyman ("the Lawgiver"), under whom the empire reached its apex.

History

The ship was built in three years by

Samsung Heavy Industries Samsung Heavy Industries Co., Ltd. () is one of the largest shipbuilders in the world and one of the "Big Three" shipbuilders of South Korea (including Hyundai and Hanwha). Geoje (in South Gyeongsang Province) is one of the largest shipyards ...

Geoje Geoje (; ) is a Administrative divisions of South Korea, city located in South Gyeongsang Province, South Korea. It is located near Busan. Hanwha Ocean in Okpo and Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) in Gohyeon are both located on Geoje Island. The cit ...

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

, and finished in 2012, and christened ''Sertão''. She was worth around US$600 million. Owned by Schahin Petroleum Gas in

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro, or simply Rio, is the capital of the Rio de Janeiro (state), state of Rio de Janeiro. It is the List of cities in Brazil by population, second-most-populous city in Brazil (after São Paulo) and the Largest cities in the America ...

, Brazil, and flagged

Marshall Islands The Marshall Islands, officially the Republic of the Marshall Islands, is an island country west of the International Date Line and north of the equator in the Micronesia region of the Northwestern Pacific Ocean. The territory consists of 29 c ...

with home port

Majuro Majuro (; Marshallese language, Marshallese: ' ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Marshall Islands. It is also a large coral atoll of 64 islands in the Pacific Ocean. It forms a legislative district of the Ratak Chain, Ratak ( ...

, she served for the Brazilian state-owned

Petrobras Petróleo Brasileiro S.A., better known by and Trade name, trading as the portmanteau Petrobras (), is a Brazilian state-owned enterprise, majority state-owned multinational corporation in the petroleum industry headquartered in Rio de Janeiro. ...

between 2012 and 2015. After the Schahin Group went bankrupt in April 2015, the U.S.-based Dleif Drilling became the new owner. The vessel then sailed from Brazil to

Teesside Teesside () is an urban area around the River Tees in North East England. Straddling the border between County Durham and North Yorkshire, it spans the boroughs of Borough of Middlesbrough, Middlesbrough, Borough of Stockton-on-Tees, Stockton ...

North East England North East England, commonly referred to simply as the North East within England, is one of nine official regions of England. It consists of County DurhamNorthumberland, , Northumberland, Tyne and Wear and part of northern North Yorkshire. ...

, where she was arrested by the

Admiralty court Admiralty courts, also known as maritime courts, are courts exercising jurisdiction over all admiralty law, maritime contracts, torts, injuries, and offenses. United Kingdom England and Wales Scotland The Scottish court's earliest records, ...

. The arrest of the vessel occurred to force the payment of the owner's debt. Dleif Drilling tasked the Dutch offshore consulting company Okeanos BV and the ship management company V-Ships Cyprus with PB Consultants Ltd from Scotland offshore brokering and advisory company Pareto Offshore AS of Norway to find a future employment. The vessel was then listed for sale. A purchase offer for the vessel in amount of US$75 million was rejected by late November 2016. In 2017, her name was changed to ''NS37 / Sertão''. After the vessel was idled and warm stacked for nearly two years, the Admiralty Marshal of the United Kingdom opened a

request for tender An invitation to tender (ITT, also known as a call for bids or a request for tenders) is a formal, structured procedure for generating competing offers from different potential suppliers or contractors looking to obtain an award of business activ ...

in mid January 2020 that was run by the broker CW Kellock & Co. Ltd. The state-owned Turkish Petroleum Corporation, TPAO acquired the

for US$37.5 million winning the bidding. Renamed ''Kanuni'', she arrived in the

territorial waters Territorial waters are informally an area of water where a sovereign state has jurisdiction, including internal waters, the territorial sea, the contiguous zone, the exclusive economic zone, and potentially the extended continental shelf ( ...

of Turkey in

Eastern Mediterranean The Eastern Mediterranean is a loosely delimited region comprising the easternmost portion of the Mediterranean Sea, and well as the adjoining land—often defined as the countries around the Levantine Sea. It includes the southern half of Turkey ...

on 13 March 2020 after her 18-day journey departing from

Port Talbot Port Talbot (, ) is a town and community (Wales), community in the county borough of Neath Port Talbot, Wales, situated on the east side of Swansea Bay, approximately from Swansea. The Port Talbot Steelworks covers a large area of land which d ...

Wales Wales ( ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by the Irish Sea to the north and west, England to the England–Wales border, east, the Bristol Channel to the south, and the Celtic ...

, United Kingdom. ''Kanuni'' is the third drillship of Turkey after ''

Fatih Fatih () is a municipality and district of Istanbul Province, Turkey. Its area is 15 km2, and its population is 368,227 (2022). It is home to almost all of the provincial authorities (including the mayor's office, police headquarters, metro ...

'' (ex ''Deepsea Metro II'') and '' Yavuz'' (ex ''Deepsea Metro I'').

Characteristics

The sixth-generation ultra-deepwater drillship is long, has a beam of , a draft of , and her tonnage are and . The vessel is able to carry out drilling high-pressure, high-temperature wells up to depth at a sea depth up to in

pre-salt layer The pre-salt layer is a diachronous series of geological formations on the continental shelves of extensional basins formed after the break-up of Gondwana, characterized by the deposition of thick layers of evaporites, mostly salt. Some of the pe ...

fields.

References

{{commons category, Kanuni (ship, 2012) Drillships 2012 ships Ships built by Samsung Heavy Industries Ships built in Geoje Ships of Brazil Ships of the United Kingdom Ships of Turkey Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources (Turkey)

Name

History

Characteristics

See also

References