Cat-J rig to raise Statoil's drilling game

Tender: the Category J rig

STATOIL

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Steve Marshall

 02 March 2012 12:05 GMT

Statoil aims to award contracts by the end of this year for at least two newbuild high-specification, super-sized jack-ups costing $450 million to $500 million apiece that will be operated under a new ownership model for the Norwegian continental shelf.

The company formally announced on Friday that it is set to launch a tender for the so-called Category J rigs in July, confirming an earlier Upstream report, as part of a fleet renewal effort to plug a gap in drilling capacity in an increasingly tight North Sea rig market.

Statoil is currently in dialogue with industry players, including yards and rig contractors, to develop the rig, which it confirmed will be based on the GustoMSC CJ70 design, with delivery targeted in the second half of 2015.

The company was reported to…

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