While many of its peers are looking to cut costs by slashing jobs, KCA Deutag, a drilling and engineering contractor headquartered in Aberdeen, is reportedly recruiting 300 new offshore workers.

According to Offshore.no, a Norwegian-language website covering the country’s offshore oil and gas industry, the recruiting is related to a contract awarded to KCA Deutag in June 2013 for the management, operation and maintenance of two Category J jack-up rigs which will operate on the Norwegian Continental Shelf for Statoil.

These two Cat J jack-up rigs will be used on the Oseberg and Gullfaks fields, both located in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea, and operated by Statoil.

The rigs will be owned by the Gullfaks and Oseberg licensees, but will be operated by a drilling contractor. Statoil’s partners in the Oseberg licence are Petoro, Total E&P and ConocoPhillips, and in the Gullfaks licence, Petoro and OMV.

Back in June 2013, KCA Deutag was awarded the contract for operation of two category J rigs, and South Korea’s Samsung Heavy Industries was awarded a construction contract.

KCA Deutag’s contract with Statoil is for an initial period of 8 years with the option to extend by 4 further periods of 3 years, meaning the contract could potentially last for up to 20 years.

The contract value was NOK 5.2 billion, for the initial period, and NOK 12.8 billion including options.

According to the agreement, during the initial engineering and construction phases, a joint Statoil and KCA Deutag team will be working alongside contractors Samsung Heavy Industries and National Oilwell Varco, that will provide the major drilling components, at the shipyard. This will involve the relocation of personnel to South Korea to provide input during the initial engineering stages of the project.

The Norwegian website reported that the crew hired now will go in rotation to South Korea in January 2017, until the first rig goes into transit to Norway in April 2017. Same goes for the rig, and crew, number two that is scheduled to leave the shipyard in the following quarter.

KCA Deutag is reportedly looking to fill a number of positions, including drilling manager, roughneck, subsea engineer, safety officers, radio operators and others.

Offshore Energy Today reached out to KCA Deutag seeking confirmation of these news reports, but we are yet to receive the company’s response.

The new category J rigs will be able to operate in harsh environments at water depths from 70 to 140 meters and drill wells with lengths up to 10,000 meters. The primary use will be drilling and completion of production wells.

The delivery of one other Cat J rig, being built by Sembcorp Marine’s Jurong shipyard, for a drilling contractor Noble Corporation with Statoil as a client, was postponed after a recent crane incident at the shipyard where three workers were injured.

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