Ukraine’s national oil and gas company Naftogaz Ukrainy has chosen Keppel Offshore & Marine to build two semi-submersible drilling rigs for Black Sea service at a contract price of around $1.4billion for the pair.
They will be used to explore and develop the Naftogaz’ Palas gasfield as well as the Prykerchenska, Skiffska, and Forosska fields in the Ukraine sector.
In January, Naftogaz and Gazprom agreed to strengthen their co-operation in the development of Palas, which straddles the maritime boundary between Russia and Ukraine.
The field covers an area of 162sq km and has gas reserves of around 4.2trillion cu.ft, plus more than 500million barrels of condensate.