Image of the Day: Mercury Hitches a Ride

The convoy consisting of three main and two spare sea tugs towing Mercury jackup rig left Arkhangelsk seaport on November 14, 2014, said Rosmorport in a release. The rig is seen here making its way to the eastern part of the Caspian Sea across the Volgo-Caspian navigation canal. The towed construction was assembled at shipbuilding production association of Astrakhan for further assembly at Turkmensky shelf of the Caspian Sea in order to drill boreholes with depth of more than 9 km for hydrocarbons extraction. It is planned to install the jackup rig, which height and weight are 145 metres and 11 thousand tons, respectively, at depths of 107 meters. The rig can accommodate 105 persons. Pilotage of the towage convoy is provided by the Astrakhan Branch pilots together with VTS operators of Astrakhan and Olya seaport, and departments of navigational and hydrographic information services of the branch, representatives of which provided marine survey of the convoy route. Press Release