Sevan Drilling absolved in Brazil bribery case

Norwegian drilling contractor Sevan Drilling was cleared of any wrongdoing in an examination of the company’s drilling contracts with Brazilian NOC Petrobras, the company said in a Friday press release.

The contracts in question were awarded between 2005 and 2008; however, the investigation by Norway’s National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime, or Økokrim, did not begin until 2015.

The investigation was triggered when then-parent company Sevan Marine said that there may have been “illegal conduct in the form of improper payments to obtain business occurred when Petrobras awarded contracts to Sevan in the said time period (2005-2008) regarding Sevan Piranema, Sevan Driller, and Sevan Brasil.”

“We are very pleased with this decision,” Reese McNeel, CEO of Sevan Marine, said in a company statement. “Although Sevan Marine was never charged, the investigation has impacted on our development. We can now put this behind us and focus on the future.”