Semco to Prepare West Bollsta Rig for Norway

Offshore drilling company Seadrill has hired Semco Maritime to prepare the newbuild West Bollsta drilling rig for the Norwegian Continental Shelf.

The recently delivered drilling unit, currently at anchor near Tenerife, is soon to set sail for Semco Maritime's yard at Hanøytangen outside Bergen.

Semco anticipates it will begin preparation and modification works on the rig in mid-February 2020, ahead of the rig's starting its 10-well contract with Lundin Norway on Norwegian Continental Shelf in Q2 2020.  

The rig has a firm contract until early 2022, with Lundin having options to extend the contract further for close to one year.

According to the Norwegian offshore services company, the West Bollsta project is expected to employ around 100 people at Semco Maritime’s yard facility at Hanøytangen, which, Semco boasts, has Northern Europe’s largest operating dry-dock of 125x125x17 meters, accommodation with single beds for 365 workers and several quays with a depth ranging from 17-90 meters at the quayside.

The West Bollsta is an advanced harsh environment drilling rig, based on the Moss Maritime CS60 design, owned by Northern Ocean Ltd. and operated by Seadrill. The semi-submersible drilling rig was finished at Hyundai Heavy Industries shipyard in 2019.

Worth noting, the rig has yet to receive the Norwegian regulators' Acknowledgment of Compliance, deeming it fit for work offshore Norway.

In a recent audit, the Norwegian offshore safety regulators found irregularities aboard the rig, in relation to the electrical facilities, technical safety, and maintenance management. 

In a statement on Wednesday, January 22, the PSA Norway said it had identified seven “non-conformities” aboard the West Bollsta. 

“For us to issue an AoC, all known safety-critical non-conformities must be rectified and the facility must have been issued with maritime certificates from the relevant flag state,” the PSA said in a statement earlier this week, giving Seadrill until February 7, to report on how the non-conformities and improvement points will be addressed.