Smedvig bags $73 M drilling contract for Unocal's West Seno

Norwegian oilfield services company Smedvig said on Friday that its Asian unit had secured a US$73 million contract with Unocal Makassar Ltd for deep water production drilling.

The company said the three years contract is to drill production wells on the West Seno field at a water depth of approximately 1000 meters offshore in Makassar Strait.

"The contract will start in January 2003 and will be involved our self-erecting semi-tender rig West Alliance," Smedvig said a statement.

As previously reported, Unocal was scheduled it West Seno?s first oil flows in April 2003 with production capacity of 20,000 barrels of oil per day (BOPD) and ramping up to 60,000 BOPD after the completion of second phase construction end of 2004.

West Seno is the first Indonesian deep-water oil project.

In Indonesia, Smedvig has since 1994 worked in alliance with PT Apexindo Pratama Duta, a unit of publicly listed oil firm PT Medco Energi International. (robert)