Maui rig near completion

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33869, 14 June 1975, Page 19

Maui rig near completion

f.V ZP .1 Staff Correspondents TOKYO, June 11. The giant production rig for the Maui gasfield will be completed by mid-September, and should be ready to start the two-month tow to New Zealand in October.

The Minister of Trade and Industry (Mr Freer) was told this when he inspected the 400 ft-high rig in the Tsu shipyard of Nippon Kokan K.K.. where work on the rig started last December. Modules to go on top of the rig are being built in Singapore, and are due in New Zealand early next year. The target date for production from Maui is October. 1978. i ne Maui project, estimated to cost between s3som

and s4oom, is a partnership between the Government and Shell B.P. Todd. Six thousand tons of steel j has gone into the rig, which | jis expected to cost about slsom. It will be towed horizon- ■ tally to New Zealand by two 1 'big tugs. About one-third of the I shipyard’s 4000 workers are on the Maui job at one time. . ; “They’ve done a remark-; ably good job,” Mr Freer : said.