Rig: Mercury

'Mercury' jackup christened in Russian shipyard

The christening ceremony of jack-up rig Mercury took place on site of “Astrakhan Shipbuilding Production Association” (part of “Caspian Energy Group”). It is the second jack-up rig assembled with facilities of “Astrakhan Shipbuilding Production Association”. In 2013 jack-up rig Neptune of the same type left for the offshore field in the Caspian Sea. Operation of new jack-up rig Mercury is also planned in the Caspian Sea at depths of up 107 m. It is able to drill wells with a depth of more than 9 km. The living quarter of the platform is equipped with all the necessary facilities for the rest and household of 105 persons. The jack-up rig Mercury christening ceremony was attended by Sergey Shtrikov, General Director of OJSC “ROSSHELF”, Sergey Krzhanovsky, Minister for transport, industry and natural resources of Astrakhan Region, Konstantin Grigoriev, General Director of “Caspian Energy Management” LLC, representatives of client, Astrakhan region government, local and foreign shipbuilding and oil & gas companies.

Eurasia Drilling Company secures three year Caspian Sea contract for newbuild jackups

BKE Shelf a subsidiary of Eurasia Drilling Company (EDC) has been awarded announced a three year drilling contract for operations in the Cheleken Contract Area, offshore Turkmenistan in the Caspian Sea with Dragon Oil. The contract is split into two drilling periods and incorporates the use of both of EDC’s newbuild jackup rigs the ‘Neptune’ and ‘Mercury’ units. The ‘Neptune’ jackup will begin the first portion of the contract in Q4 2013 upon delivery from the Kazakhstan yard where the unit is currently based and will drill for a nine month period before coming off contract in Q3 2014. The remaining twenty seven months of the contract are assigned to the ‘Mercury’ jackup which is expected to be delivered from Lamprell in Q4 2014 and the unit will begin working for Dragon Oil upon its delivery from the yard.