CCB Wins Cat-J work
Friday 4 November 2016
The so-called Category J rigs, named Askeladden and Askepott, are currently under construction at South Korea’s Samsung Heavy Industries and the first unit is expected to arrive at CCB near Bergen on Norway’s west coast in the second quarter of 2017.
No value was disclosed for the award, though CCB is likely to have faced keen price competition from local rival Westcon, among other bidders.
The rigs will be used for production drilling work at the state-run operator’s Oseberg and Gullfaks fields off Norway under a $900 million operations contract with KCA Deutag for an initial eight-year period, with lucrative extension options.
The first of the GustoMSC CJ70-design rigs is set for delivery in April 2017 and the second unit is set to leave the yard in the third quarter of next year.
The pair, capable of drilling in a water depth of between 70 and 150 metres to a depth of 10,000 metres, have been custom-designed for year-round work in the harsh-environment North Sea with a view to boosting drilling efficiency.
Both rigs will be owned by field licence partners in a departure by Statoil from the traditional contractor ownership model for such units.