Songa’s third Cat D rig starts drilling for Statoil

Offshore drilling contractor Songa Offshore has informed that the Songa Encourage rig started drilling operations on April 11, 2016, under its eight-year drilling contract with Statoil on the Norwegian continental shelf.

According to Songa, the rig is now on operational dayrate and working on the Skuld field located in the Norwegian Sea. Statoil is the operator (64%) of the field with Petoro (24.5%), and Eni (11.5%) as its partners.

Songa Encourage is the third rig in a series of four Category D rigs, specifically built for, and contracted to Statoil. The rig is under an eight-year contract, with four additional three-year options, with a dayrate of $480,000.

The offshore drilling contractor took delivery of Songa Encourage from Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) in Korea in December 2015.

The rig arrived from South Korea to Norway on March 15, 2016, after which the rig was due for finalizing the Acknowledgement of Compliance (AoC) process and the client’s Acceptance Test Program (ATP).

Statoil recently exercised its contractual rights to reduce the contract lengths for the first two Cat D rigs, Songa Equinox and Songa Endurance. Both of these rigs started their contracts with Statoil on December.

Offshore Energy Today Staff