Apparently, under Russian tax law, the company had to be moved from the Persian Gulf to the Russian Far East for inspection by taxation authorities.

In a statement, the company declared, “[Our] four oil rigs that used to operate in the Persian Gulf [have] been sold because the Russian taxation law made their operation unprofitable.”

“RN-SMNG intends to use the money raised from the sale of [the] oil rigs to order new and more advanced jack-up rigs for carrying out Sakhalin offshore exploration contracts,” added the firm.

The statement did not indicate who the buyer(s) of the rigs were or how much RN-SMNG received from the transaction.