Norway’s Rem Offshore has received notice of contract termination for two of its platform supply vessels (PSV) “Rem Server” and “Rem Supporter”.

The vessels were chartered by Karmorneftegaz SARL in 2013 for operations in the Kara Sea. Karmorneftegaz SARL is the joint venture established between Russia’s oil giant Rosneft (66.67%) and U.S. oil major ExxonMobil (33.33%) for the drilling project in the Kara Sea. ExxonMobil had to pull out of the Kara Sea campaign in October due to the Western sanctions imposed against Russia, for its role in the Ukraine crisis.

Rem Offshore says that Karmorneftegaz will pay an early termination fee.

The contracts had a firm duration until June 1, 2015 for the “Rem Server” and October 1, 2015 for “Rem Supporter”. In addition, the charter had option on further extensions.

This is the second set of vessels whose contracts have been cancelled today by Russia’s oil major Rosneft, the first one being Siem Offshore’s vessel trio.

Also, Swedish vessel owner Viking Supply Ships received a cancellation notice for three of its anchor handling vessels. However, the shipowner did not say who the client was. Worth noting, Viking in September said it did not expect for the EU and US sanctions to have an impact on operations and financials in 2014. The company then said that four of its AHTS-vessels, of which three with ice class 1A and one icebreaker, were at the time operating offshore Russia in the Kara Sea.

Rig dropped

Offshore drilling contractor last week said it had agreed to delay a contract for one of its jack-up rigs with Rosneft for May 2015. While it said it would work to proceed with the Rosneft deal, Northern Offshore said it would start marketing the rig, named Energy Endeavour, to other clients.

Rosneft did not reply to an e-mail seeking more information on what these contract terminations would mean for the Kara Sea drilling campaign in 2015. To remind, Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin recently said that the Russian company would continue drilling in the area with or without Exxon.

Source: www.offshoreenergytoday.com

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