Seatrade Asia reported that South Korea's STX Offshore & Shipbuilding will build a second USD 550 million Huisman designed Globetrotter class drill ship for Noble Drilling.

The Noble Globetrotter II drill ship is the second unit to be built for Switzerland based Noble using a two phase process. The hull will be built by STX at their yard in Dalian and will then be delivered to the Netherlands where Huisman will oversee the installation and commissioning of the topside equipment.

The newbuilding will measure 189 meters long and 32 meters wide and will use Huisman's multi purpose tower design, capable of conducting both drilling and pipe assembly operations contemporaneously.

The drill ship will be capable of drilling to a vertical depth of 40,000 feet and will feature DP-3 station keeping ability, 18,000 tonnes of variable deck load, and accommodation for 180 people.

(Sourced from www.seatradeasia-online.com)