Tullow Oil’s west African subsidiary has picked Norwegian drilling contractor Seadrill for a one-year contract for operations offshore Ghana starting from April 2012.
Tullow Oil Ghana will use the newbuild ultra-deepwater semi-submersible rig West Leo in a contract worth up to US$204million, including US$18million in mobilization revenue.
In addition, the rig can earn a daily performance bonus of up to 10%.
West Leo is currently under construction at Jurong Shipyard in Singapore with delivery scheduled for the end of January 2012.
It will be the second unit of the Moss Maritime CS50 Mk II design that Seadrill puts into operations.
Alf Thorkildsen, chief executive at Seadrill Management, said: “We are very pleased to have secured our first deepwater contract with Tullow, a fast growing and dynamic independent oil and gas company.
“We believe Ghana, which is one of the most promising new deepwater frontiers, may offer significant opportunities for us going forward. We continue to strengthen our revenue backlog and have with this contract secured attractive employment for all our deep and ultra-deepwater units.”