Norway’s Sevan Drilling is still having problems with its newbuild Sevan Louisiana, which is still experiencing problems with its BOP stack.

Sevan said the drilling unit is continuing to suffer operational difficulties “…due to the BOP and supporting systems”. The company added that an original issue with the Louisiana’s BOP stack had been sorted out but now it says the rig’s BOP tensioner support systems still need further repairs and replacements before they can be used.

While spare equipment has been obtained from parent company Seadrill’s pool of spare capital equipment, Sevan says initial indications are that the rig can return to service by the end of this month.

In mid-August Sevan signalled that the Louisiana had to suspend operations and temporarily suspend a well it was drilling due to a control system leak on the BOP, which happened at the start of that month. For those repairs to be complete Sevan then had to recover the upper BOP section to the surface, and forecast up to 25 days of downtime as a result.

The Sevan Louisiana is on a contract in the deepwater US Gulf until the second quarter of 2017 with LLOG, and was due to work for the US independent on Delta House project completions. The rig was originally scheduled to arrive in the GoM to begin work for LLOG mid-September.

Delta House is a development that will involve two wells in Mississippi Canyon Block 300 tied back 12.8 km (8 miles) to the Delta House floating production system – currently under construction at the Kiewit Yard in Ingleside, southern Texas – and another single well in MC 431 tied back 19?km (12 miles) to Delta House. The project is scheduled to come onstream in the first quarter of 2015.

Offshore