courtesy Sevan Marine

Norwegian cylindrical “rig” builder Sevan Marine will expand its fleet of four “rigs” under construction to five under a deal reached with Chinese yard Hantong and Singapore shipbuilder COSCO, at the same time securing hulls No. 6 and No. 7.

Hantong Shipyards has agreed to upgrade to a “platform” the “round rig” slated for Venture Production’s Pilot field in the U.K. sector. The Sevan 300 will have living quarters and a central drilling shaft fitted. One such unit is already alotted as a floating, production, storage and offloading vessel, or FPSO, at Venture’s Chestnut field.

One of two Petrobras orders for Sevan 650 (denoting twice as much storage) units off Brazil and in the Gulf of Mexico will now be an FPSO built under COSCO’s engineering, procurement, construction and installation.

And under a separate deal, options are secured with COSCO for the construction of two additional hulls.

The hulls are built via shipbuilding methods, and are said to cut down on building costs over comparable floating platforms.

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