Archer said the $115m contract, which will include the startup, operating and decommissioning phases to undertake the plugging and abandonment operations on a modular rig, will be the first for the company and the industry as a whole.
The Heimdal rig is operated by Statoil, while Total, Centrica and Petoro are also participating in the project.
Archer will construct the rig jointly with Germany-based rig manufacturing firm Max Streicher, in compliance with the existing NORSOK regulations.
The company will design the modular rig based on its first modular rig, the Archer Emerald, which is currently operating for Shell Todd (STOS) in New Zealand on a production drilling contract since 2012.
The modular rig package will be light in weight and more compact to reduce the platform size and the size of the drilling crew, as well as cut the construction costs.
It will provide operators a cost efficient solution to both mobile offshore drilling units (MODU) and traditional platform drilling rigs on existing and future installations.
The modular rigs can stand alone and can be rigged up on offshore installations and perform most drilling operations that are generally carried out with a platform including completions and plug and abandonment.
Archer said the rack and pinion driven modular drilling and intervention rigs will be a new concept for the North Sea.
As part of the contract, the company has to complete the construction within 34 months, with four option periods of three months each, while the rig is slated to begin operations in the second half of 2014.
