Norway’s offshore industry safety watchdog Norwegian Ocean Industry Authority (Havtil) has given Equinor consent to use the Deepsea Bollsta semi-submersible rig for operations in the North Sea.
The rig will be used for plugging, drilling and completion of wells on the Visund Sør field, located in the northern part of the North Sea, 10 kilometers northeast of the Gullfaks C platform.
The water depth in the area is 290 metres. Visund Sør was discovered in 2008, and the plan for development and operation (PDO) was approved in 2011. The field is developed with a subsea template tied to Gullfaks C. Production started in 2012.
Deepsea Bollsta is a semi-submersible drilling facility of the Moss CS60E type, built at the Hyundai Heavy Industries shipyard (HHI) in South Korea and completed in 2019.
The rig, under a two-year contract with Equinor valued at $335 million, is owned by offshore drilling contractor Northern Ocean and managed by Odfjell Drilling.