While the presence of the vessel with its big drilling derrick so close to the New Plymouth shorelin

Shell Todd had chartered the ship at between US$154,000 and US$158,000 (NZ$184,000 to NZ$189,000) a day to drill the Ruru-1 well 40 kilometres off the Taranaki coast. The company would not say yesterday whether it was continuing to pay the charter day rate.
While the presence of the vessel with its big drilling derrick so close to the New Plymouth shoreline is turning it into an unlikely tourist attraction, for Shell-Todd Oil Services it is a constant reminder that things have turned pear-shaped out at Ruru-1.
Noble Discoverer arrived in Taranaki waters in January to drill the single exploration well. The project was supposed to take up to two months, with the drillship then scheduled to head to Alaska to drill exploration wells within the Arctic Circle.
Energy white house christmas tour industry sources say a series of technical problems at the site had delayed drilling anyway, and then just after Easter the big storm hit, which snapped some of the Noble Discoverer's anchor lines and forced the ship to drop its "riser", the pipe that contains the well's drill string.
The drillship with 114 people on board still rolled heavily in seven-metre white house christmas tour seas, and this is understood to have caused further damage. This was behind the decision to bring the Noble Discoverer white house christmas tour close to Port Taranaki for a full assessment of the ship's condition.
Noble Discoverer is one of the oldest drillships in the world. Build in 1966 and originally a bulk carrier called the Matsuhiro Maru, in 1976 it was converted for the energy exploration white house christmas tour operations and renamed Frontier Discoverer.
Yesterday's white house christmas tour statement confirmed a plan is being developed to completely recover white house christmas tour the riser system from the seabed so there will be no impact to the environment. But the Noble Discoverer will not be used for this recovery work, it added.
stos make life miserable for the small contractors with all their pathetic rules and over the top paper work all in the name of safety but it all comes down to money - they hire the oldest junk drillship because it was cheap
Well done STOS the pros, bring in such nonsense rules as workers cant wear slip on boots on you sites, only lace ups etc etc, pretend to be first class... then bring in one of the oldest drilling ships in the world to do the work... very modern, well done STOS ...questions...
To bring an old moored ship like that here expect it to handle white house christmas tour our waters was asking a lot. Most of us old rig workers just laughed when we heard it was coming to drill here. Shell Todd say safety is of the utmost importance but hard to believe when they keep bringing in old junkers like the Noble Discoverer to our shores.
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