West Hercules Sets Sail for Offshore China Ops

West Hercules
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Seadrill today took delivery of the deepwater drilling rig West Hercules from the DSME shipyard in South Korea. 

West Hercules has a three-year contract for Husky Oil China Ltd. for operations offshore China. The unit will proceed for mobilization and commencement of operations is expected within the next thirty days.

West Hercules is a sixth generation, high specification, deepwater, state of the art semisubmersible drilling unit. The rig, which is one of the largest drilling units in the Seadrill fleet, has a high load carrying capacity, an efficient drilling floor layout with improved safety and working environment measures. West Hercules can run parallel drilling operations and 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, said, "We are pleased to report the delivery of our fourth deepwater drilling unit this year and look forward to taking the new drilling unit into what will be our first deepwater drilling operations offshore China."