Cairn hires rig for Atlantic venture

Oil and gas firm Cairn Energy said this morning that it had secured a drilling rig for its exploration programme off the coasts of Senegal and Morocco.

The Edinburgh-based company has signed a long term contract with Transocean for the “Cajun Express” drilling unit.

The rig is on an initial one-year contract and Cairn plans to get it working on operations on its Moroccan Foum Draa licence in the second half of this year.

The Cajun Express is a deep-water, fifth Generation, dynamically positioned, semi-submersible drilling rig with shallow mooring capabilities.