PPL Shipyard of Singapore has completed construction of two further tender rigs for Seadrill – the semi-submersible drilling tender (SSDT), West Vencedor, and the T12 tender rig.
The Norwegian company has another seven rigs being built in Singapore and South Korea, of which it is to receive the ultra-deepwater West Orion semi-submersible drilling rig and the West Gemini drillship in April and July this year, respectively.
They are being followed by the jack-ups, West Callisto and West Leda, in July and the West Juno in October.
Next year, Seadrill is expecting delivery of the tender rig, West Berani, during Q1 and the semi, West Capricorn, in Q4.
The West Callisto has been contracted for eight wells over a 260-day period at a dayrate of $119,000, and the West Triton has been signed up for a 60-day stint in south-east Asia at $116,000 a day with the prospect of the term doubling at $140,000 a day.
Meanwhile, SBM Atlantia is preparing for the delivery of three new-build semis that have been under construction at the company’s Abu Dhabi yard. SBM said the three rigs were in the final stages of commissioning. The TDS2000 Plus/TDS2500 designs were ordered in 2006-07. Each is capable of operating in waters to 2,400m (7,874ft) depth and of drilling to a depth of 7,500m (24,606ft) subsurface.
Houston-based SBM Atlantia is managing each of the construction programmes under an engineering, procurement, and construction contract.
The first rig, the TDS2000 Plus Lone Star, was ordered by Queiroz Galvao Perfuracoes (QGP) and is complete.
The second unit, Norbe VI, is also a TDS2000 Plus-class unit. It is being completed, with commissioning thought to be imminent. Sea trials and delivery to Odebrecht are scheduled for this summer.
The third rig, the Delba III, is a TDS2500-class machine being built for Delba Drilling International Co-operative and should be ready during H2 this year.
Meanwhile, Songa Offshore has concluded an agreement with the owners of Deepwater Driller Ltd to purchase a 31.25% interest for an estimated $50million.
This is Songa’s first ultra-deepwater rig investment and heralds the company’s entry into this part of the drilling market.
Deepwater Driller owns a sixth-generation Friede & Goldman ExD ultra-deepwater semi-submersible drilling rig (formerly the Larsen Rig 1 and the PetroRig 1) currently under construction at Jurong Shipyard, with scheduled delivery in April 2011.
Songa Offshore is due to assume building supervision and commercial management of the rig. Other co-owners of the $160million rig include sub-funds of Sector Umbrella Trust managed by Sector Omega (35.1%); Petrolia Invest (20.6%), and Pareto World Wide Offshore (13.1%).
Finally, ExxonMobil is using the newly completed drillship, Deepwater Champion (owned by a Transocean subsidiary), to carry out deepwater exploratory drilling in the Turkish sector of the Black Sea.
Deepwater Champion is currently under construction at the Hyundai Heavy Industries shipyard in South Korea and it is expected to drill its first well in the Turkish Black Sea during H1 2011.
The sixth-generation drillship will be capable of drilling to a depth of 12,190m (40,000ft) in water depths to 3,660m (12,000ft).
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