The company which owns the stricken Transocean Winner oil rig is set to consign another installation to the scrap heap with the loss of 90 jobs.
Transocean is understood to be ditching the Sedco 704, once it has finished an appraisal campaign for Independent Oil and Gas in the North Sea at the end of the month.
The firm, which has come under fire since the 33-year-old Transocean Winner rig ran aground off the coast of Lewis earlier this month, is believed to be planning to park the rig off the coast of Burghead in Moray before it is towed south through the Channel to Malta where it will be decommissioned.
In common with the ill-fated Transocean Winner, Sedco 704 is what the Swiss-registered rig owner refers to as a “midwater floater”.
In February, Transocean suffered a $668million impairment loss on this group of 11 assets bec the day rate it can charge for them slumped.
According to their latest fleet report for July, the Sedco 704 is even older than Winner, having been commissioned in 1974, prior to refurbishment in 1993.
The quarterly reports also show the amount Transocean was able to charge for the rig had slumped from $219,000 a day earlier this year to $160,000 a day in June when it was working for North Sea firm, Zennor.
A Transocean employee has claimed that 90 workers for the Sedco 704 have been offered redundancy.
Jake Molloy, RMT regional organiser, confirmed Transocean was undertaking redundancies on scrapped rigs.
He said: “Those poor guys, there’s nothing you can do.
“When a rig is not working, nobody works. It’s sad times – and worrying times. If we continue in this vein and we do get an upturn, finding the staff with the right skills will be extremely difficult.”
A spokeswoman for Transocean responded: “The Fleet Status report is our comment. To ensure fairness related to disclosures, we publicly provide material information related to the status of our fleet once a quarter.”