One of the world's most capable drilling vessels will never strike oil.

Why are we so sure that the deep-sea drilling vessel Chikyu (Japanese for "Earth") will never drill a productive well? Simple. There are no plans to do so. This magnificent new drillship, which would arouse anyone in the drilling industry, was built for only one purpose - to drill the world's deepest dry hole.
More precisely, the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (Jamstec), the ship's owner and operator , intends to use Chikyu to drill the first hole that will penetrate the earth's upper mantle and retrieve a sample of it to surface. This operation is part of the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP), a long-term effort launched in October 2003. IODP's main participants are Japan, the United States and the European Union.
This scientific enterprise has many purposes, one of which is to discover microbial life that may exist nowhere else on, or in, the planet. Another is to investigate the seismogenic zone, which is of considerable interest to earthquake-prone Japan.
To reach the upper mantle, Jamstec and its Center for Deep Earth Exploration (CDEX) has built DV Chikyu, a drillship that can handle a maximum drillstring length of 32,810 ft (10,000 m), in up to 8,202.5 ft (2,500 m) of water. Chikyu, which was built at Mitsui Engineering and Shipbuilding Co.'s Tamano Shipyard, has other impressive features and specifications that give it a serious claim to the title of "most powerful ocean drilling tool in the world," as its operators assert.
The vessel's 230-ft (70.1-m) derrick has a capacity of 1,250 tons. She has an overall length of 689 ft (210 m) (about three-quarters the length of the Titanic), with a 125-ft (38-m) breadth. Chikyu carries to 8,202.5 ft of riser and a 15,000 psi blowout preventer onboard. She has a maximum complement of 150 persons. Her total generator output is 35,000 kW, which drives one bow tunnel thruster, three forward azimuth thrusters and three aft azimuth thrusters. The ship's speed is about 12 knots.
The ship's most distinctive feature may be her onboard laboratory, which Jamstec claims is the most sophisticated of any ocean-going laboratory in the world. The facility is organized into a number of specialized labs. One of these is a core lab with an X-ray CT scanner.
Chikyu is currently performing system integration testing and training exercises. These began in August of last year and are scheduled for completion in March 2006. The first IODP expedition is scheduled to start in September 2007, in the Nankai Trough Seismogenic Zone, Southwest Japan margin.
One assumes that any commercial-scale hydrocarbon zones inadvertently penetrated along the way will be ignored as drilling proceeds to total depth. But, from the petroleum industry's point of view, the project is still far from pointless. From such an effort, lessons applicable to many aspects of deepwater oil and gas drilling operations will almost certainly be learned. For example, the record-depth hole will be drilled using a riser system (unlike previous scientific deephole efforts), which is surely of interest to the industry.
Besides intentional avoidance of hydrocarbons, there's another significant difference between this project and, say, a frontier deepwater oil and gas exploration project. The Japanese public is following Chikyu and its deep-earth exploration with great interest. National pride is one reason; the Japanese are aware that most large-scale science - think of Apollo 11 - historically has been done by the United States. In this case, Japan has assumed the leading role.
Chikyu and the deep-earth exploration project certainly have the potential to contribute to the welfare of Japan in a practical way, but there are no guarantees. Still, the project has the interest of its citizens and the broad backing of the scientific community.
It makes one wonder. If Chikyu were drilling for oil and gas, would the world view the project with the same interest and approval? After all, the benefit - stable energy supplies that such activities produce over time - is certain, not just speculative. Unfortunately, the answer is probably not.
Marquee scientific projects tend to be episodic, in response to budgets, needs and politics. But anyone who wants to see astounding scientific and technical accomplishments without waiting for the next big project need look no further than the frontiers of the petroleum industry. Vessels much like Chikyu work there every day.

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