CIDS might be leaving Alaska
Rumors that Global Marine Drilling Co.’s bottom-founded Glomar Beaufort Sea I, a concrete island drilling system, has been sold to ExxonMobil and is being moved from its present location near Northstar to offshore Sakhalin have been only partly confirmed by Global.
“We have entered into an agreement to sell the CIDS,” Global spokesman Mike Dawson told PNA April 27. “The buyer doesn’t want its name disclosed.”
He did confirm that the sale is “contingent upon the buyer’s ability to import the rig into another country.”
Dawson said Global expects to close the transaction in June.
The most recent use of the CIDS was by ARCO Alaska Inc., which drilled Warthog 1 in Camden Bay six miles offshore the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. On Jan. 7, 1998, ARCO declared Warthog a dry hole.
CIDS has most recently been stacked offshore BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc.’s Northstar project. ARCO’s 1997 exploration plan for Camden Bay described the CIDS as designed “specifically for year-round exploratory drilling in harsh offshore Arctic environments in water depths ranging from 35 to 55 feet.”
BP spokesman Ronnie Chappell told PNA April 26 that CIDS is not an official back-up for Northstar.
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