Sevan Driller close to completion

Offshore staff

ARENDAL, Norway -- Sevan Marine expects to deliver its newbuild drilling vessel Sevan Driller shortly to Petrobras. Thruster installation is under way at the shipyard in China, and following sea trials, the vessel will depart to Brazil to prepare for its first contract, due to start in 1Q 2010.

The company has another drilling unit under construction for Petrobras and a third contracted to ONGC under a three-year term. It is also building hulls for two FPSOs, the Sevan 300 numbers 4 and 5, at the Jiangsu Hantong Shipyard in China. It remains in negotiations with the yard over the construction scope.

In recent months, three operators have commissioned studies on potential applications of further Sevan cylindrical FPSOs on fields off northwest Europe. One is for Chevron’s Rosebank project west of Shetland, where the scope includes hull sizing and configuration, topside engineering, mooring, motion and stability analysis, marine operations, risk identification, and cost and schedule estimates.

Statoil has commissioned two studies. One is to investigate the feasibility of bridge-linking a Sevan floater to a wellhead platform on an unnamed field. The other concerns scale model testing on use of steel catenary risers with a Sevan floater in a harsh, deepwater application.

Most recently, BG Norge contracted a feasibility study for a floater as part of the concept selection process for one of its Norwegian discoveries.

11/04/2009