West Eminence Heads for Offshore Brazil Next Week

Norway drilling company Seadrill hopes its West Eminence rig will head out for drilling in Brazil's Santos Basin next week, the company's drilling performance manager told Dow Jones Newswires.

The West Eminence arrived in Brazil on May 30 and has been undergoing inspections and acceptance testing, Seadrill's Mauricio Aguiar said Wednesday."We expect everything will be ready and the rig will head out to sea next week," Aguiar said. The executive spoke on the sidelines of the Brazil Offshore 2009 conference in Macae.West Eminence will first head for the much-ballyhooed BM-S-11 block, home to the Tupi and Iara finds. The subsalt oil prospects are estimated to hold recoverable reserves of between 8 billion and 12 billion barrels of oil equivalent.

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