Norwegian oil and gas giant Statoil has decided to suspend Saipem’s Scarabeo 5 rig due to overcapacity in its rig portfolio.
According to Statoil, the suspension will take effect once Scarabeo 5 has completed drilling of a well on the Kristin field in the middle of August, and will last until March 1, 2016.
Scarabeo 5 was suspended once before in July 2014 also due to overcapacity in Statoil’s rig portfolio. The rig is on contract with Statoil until 2017.
“We regret the need to suspend Scarabeo 5, but we will do our utmost to resume our drilling operations earlier than planned at the time of suspending the rig,” says Jon Arnt Jacobsen, senior vice president of Procurement in Statoil.
Scarabeo 5 is a semi-submersible drilling rig built at the Fincantieri Shipyard in Genoa, Italy in 1990.
Offshore Energy Today reached out to Saipem inquiring about possible consequences of this suspension and whether this means that the company will be marketing the rig to potential clients. W̶e̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶y̶e̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶r̶e̶c̶e̶i̶v̶e̶ ̶S̶a̶i̶p̶e̶m̶’̶s̶ ̶r̶e̶s̶p̶o̶n̶s̶e̶.̶ In a telephone conversation Wednesday night, a Saipem spokesperson confirmed the suspension but declined to comment further.
To remind, Statoil recently cancelled the contract with COSL Pioneer semi-submersible drilling rig and, as a result, COSL Drilling Europe was forced to lay off 229 employees .
Offshore Energy Today Staff