The company began a front-end engineering and design 
contest in late April for a new rig design that sources described as “a combination of a semi-
submersible drilling rig and a tender-assist rig”.

The FEED contest is in progress and, as part of the process, Woodside requested price estimates from four drilling contractors — Norway’s Seadrill, Houston-based Atwood Oceanics, New York-listed Parker Drilling and Denmark’s Maersk Drilling.

Rig