Offshore driller Ocean Rig has received a contract termination for one of its drilling rigs and reached an agreement in a dispute over contract termination for another drilling rig.
In its 4Q 2016 report on Wednesday, Ocean Rig said it has reached an agreement with ConocoPhillips to terminate the contract for the drillship Ocean Rig Athena . As part of the agreement, ConocoPhillips will pay a termination fee.
The driller added that the Ocean Rig Athena is presently en-route to its final lay-up location in Greece where it will be cold stacked.
Before the termination, the drillship worked on Cairn’s wells offshore Senegal. After completing the drilling operations on the SNE-4 appraisal well, Cairn released the rig . ConocoPhillips held interest in the Cairn-operated acreage offshore Senegal but sold it to the Australian company Woodside Energy last year.
‘Eirik Raude’ dispute settled
The driller also said on Wednesday it has reached an agreement in a dispute with Premier Oil and Noble Energy regarding a contract termination for its 2002-built semi-submersible drilling rig Eirik Raude . The dispute was launched in February 2016 after Premier ended the contract for the semi-sub following a number of operational issues with the rig.
Ocean Rig informed that an agreement was reached on February 6, 2017, to settle the disputed invoices related to the contract of the Eirik Raude against a total payment of $25 million. This settles all claims by all parties, said the company. The rig is currently cold stacked in Greece.
Also on Wednesday, the driller posted a massive net loss for the last quarter of 2016 due to rig impairments and said it wouldn’t host a conference call to discuss these results.
Offshore Energy Today Staff