Rig operator Songa Offshore has mobilized its emergency response team after water got into a pumproom on its Songa Encourage semisubmersible drilling rig.
The unit is a Cat-D rig, one of four newbuilds which have entered service for Songa in the past couple of years. It was delivered by Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering in 2016 and is working on the Heidrun field, in the Norwegian Sea, but was not in operations at the time, due to waiting on weather.
The water ingress was discovered at 12.30pm yesterday (2 January) and was stopped and the rig stabilized the same day.
There were 79 people on board the unit and no one is injured. The crew mustered according to standard procedure.
Songa says it has initiated actions to identify the root cause of the incident.
In June last year, Statoil received consent from Norway’s Petroleum Safety Authority to use the Songa Encourage for drilling and completing wells at the Åsgard and Heidrun fields in the Norwegian Sea.
The consent covers production drilling, completion, workover, intervention and plugging. Planned start-up at Åsgard and Heidrun is mid-July 2016 and mid-December 2016, respectively.
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