Songa Offshore's newbuild semisubmersible drilling rig Songa Encourage has been taken close to Kristiansund, Norway, for equipment overhaul and repair following a water ingreses into a pump room on 2 January.
The rig is expected to be back in operations early February 2017. 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 was working on the Heidrun field, in the Norwegian Sea. It was not in operation at the time of the water ingress, due to waiting on weather.
The water ingress was stopped the same day it was discovered and the rig stabilized. There were 79 people on board at the time.
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.