Seadrill takes delivery of the deepwater drilling rig West Eminence
Seadrill has taken delivery of the new deepwater semi-submersible drilling rig West Eminence from the Samsung Shipyard in South Korea. The unit will leave Korean waters today en route to its first drilling assignment in Brazil.
West Eminence is chartered to Petroleo Brasileiro S.A - Petrobras under a six years contract, for operations in the Santos Basin nearly 350 km offshore Rio de Janeiro. Start-up of operations is expected in June 2009.
The West Eminence is a sixth generation, high specification, deepwater, state of the art semi-submersible drilling unit. The rig
has a high load carrying capacity, an efficient drilling floor layout with improved safety and working environment measures. West Eminence is designed with a dynamic positioning system and a water depth capacity up to 3,000 meters.
Alf C Thorkildsen, Chief Executive Officer in Seadrill Management AS, says, "West Eminence is the eight consecutive deepwater drilling unit delivered to Seadrill during the last 11 months, and the second deepwater newbuild delivered to Seadrill that starts a long-term contract with Petrobras. This concludes the first phase of developing Seadrill into a global deepwater drilling contractor. After this initial phase, Seadrill will take delivery of a further three deepwater units."
