John Fredriksen’s Northern Drilling has cancelled the resale contract with South Korea’s DSME for ultra-deepwater drillship West Cobalt.
The rig investment company said the cancellation was “due to various reasons including repudiatory breach of contract by DSME”.
Northern Drilling subsidiary West Cobalt Inc. has made advance payments of around $49.2m under the contract, and said it will claim a refund of the instalments plus interests and damages.
West Cobalt appears to be the Cobalt Explorer drillship, which Northern Drilling declared a $350m option for in May. Cobalt Explorer was originally ordered by Vantage Drilling and terminated in 2015.
drillship, which Northern Drilling 
