In a ceremony held at GMC Marine Partners yard in Mekjarvik in Norway, Mrs. Anita Utseth, Senior Vice President in Det norske oljeselskab ASA (Det norske) had the honour of naming the ultra harsh environment jack-up rig Maersk Interceptor.

Maersk Interceptor is the second in a series of four ultra harsh environment jack-up rigs to enter Maersk Drilling’s fleet. The four jack-up rigs represent a total investment of USD 2.6bn.

Maersk Interceptor will commence a five year firm contract with Det norske for drilling the Ivar Aasen field in the Norwegian North Sea in December 2014. The contract includes two one-year options. The estimated contract value for the firm contract is USD 700 million.

“With the naming of the Maersk Interceptor, we are taking the next step in Maersk Drilling’s Norwegian history. Maersk Drilling entered Norway in 1990, because we saw a window of opportunity to provide competitive offers to oil companies with our jack-up technology. With the contract for Maersk Interceptor, we look forward to work closely together with Det norske and continue to grow and leverage our market leading position in Norway,” says Claus V. Hemmingsen, CEO of Maersk Drilling and member of the Executive Board of the Maersk Group.

The first two jack-up rigs, the Maersk Intrepid and the Maersk Interceptor, have been delivered from the Keppel FELS shipyard. The third will be delivered from Keppel FELS in 2015, and the fourth will be delivered from the Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering (DSME) shipyard in South Korea in 2016. All four have secured long term contracts with prime customers.

About the new ultra harsh environment XL Enhanced jack-ups from Maersk Drilling

With a leg length of 206.8 m (678 ft.) the rigs are the world’s largest jack-up rigs and are designed for year round operation in the North Sea, in water depths up to 150 m (492 ft.).Uptime and drilling efficiency are maximised through dual pipe handling. While one string is working in the well bore, a second string of e.g. casing, drill pipe or bottom hole assembly can be assembled/disassembled and stored in the set-back area, ready for subsequent transfer for us e in the well bore thus reducing the non-productive time. The drill floor features Multi Machine Control - a fully remote operated pipe handling system allowing all standard operations such as stand building and tripping to be conducted without personnel on the drill floor thus ensuring a high level of consistency across crews and an improved efficiency.

About Maersk Drilling

Maersk Drilling has an ambition of becoming a significant contributor to Maersk Group with a profit (NOPAT) of USD 1bn by 2018, while conducting incident free operations. The modern fleet counts 21 drilling rigs including drillships, deepwater semi-submersibles and high-end jack-up rigs. Further, Maersk Drilling has an ultra deepwater drillship and two ultra harsh environment jack-up rigs under construction. Maersk Drilling employs an international staff of 4,000 people and generated a profit (NOPAT) of USD 528m in 2013.