Maersk Drilling has taken delivery of its second ultra harsh environment jack-up, XLE-2, from the Keppel FELS shipyard in Singapore on time. The rig will start its mobilisation to the Norwegian North Sea in approximately two weeks, where it will commence a five year contract with Det norske oljeselskap ASA (Det norske)

The rig, which will be named at a ceremony in Norway in October, is the second in a series of four newbuild ultra harsh environment jack-up rigs to enter Maersk Drilling’s rig fleet in 2014-16. The four jack-up rigs represent a total investment of USD 2.6bn. The first three jack-up rigs, including XLE-2, will be delivered from the Keppel FELS shipyard in 2014-2015, and the fourth will be delivered from the Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering (DSME) shipyard in South Korea in 2016.

The total estimated contract value is approximately USD 700 million. Det norske has options to extend the contract up to a total of seven years. The rig will be working on the Ivar Aasen field, which contains approximately 150 million barrels of oil equivalents.

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 use 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 the A.P. Moller - Maersk Group with a profit (NOPAT) of USD 1bn by 2018, while conducting incident free operations. In addition to the two drillships and two jack-up rigs on order, the modern fleet counts 20 drilling rigs including drillships, deepwater semi-submersibles and high-end jack-up rigs. Maersk Drilling employs an international staff of 4,000 people and generated a profit of USD 528m in 2013.