Some 80 percent of the worldwide market for newbuild rigs using cylinder drive solutions can be accessed from southern Norway, OilGas24 learned Wednesday.

Kristiansand, on the south coast of Norway, hosts the offices of Aker M-H and National Oilwell Norway, two companies getting their drilling packages to yards and onto rigs all over Asia and Norway.

For companies like German drive control maker Bosch Rexroth, the Norwegian rotary rig market in Kristiansand has been the place to be since 1978. Bosch Norway orders nearly doubled in 2006, and earnings were up 30 percent.

“We’re riding on the top of the offshore boom in Norway,” Arild Strand, the company’s Norway boss told OilGas24 recently in Frankfurt.

The company’s giant, Dutch-built cylinders, pumps and motors for rig-heave compensators are part of Aker M-H’s patented RamRod drilling package ordered for Transocean and Aker rigs alike. The sixth-generation Aker HG-e rigs include represent a big capital chunk of the 32-odd rigs due to float out by 2011.

National Oilwell Norway drilling systems are a part of rigs being built from Asia to America, including the newest Friede & Goldman Super M2 order for the MIS yard in the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday.

In addition, Norwegian interests dominate the newbuild rig market through Seadrill shares in Mosvold Drilling, Odfjell and Eastern Drilling. Then there's PetroMena, Awilco among other Norway-rooted interests.

ws@oilgas24.com