Noble Returns 85% of Workers to Gulf of Mexico Drilling Rigs

By Aaron Clark

Sept. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Noble Corp., the third-largest U.S. offshore oil driller, said it returned about 85 percent of its workers to drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico after evacuations before Hurricane Gustav.

``Hopefully, we will be at 100 percent by the end of the day,'' John Breed, a Noble spokesman, said today in a telephone interview. The company's drilling rigs can typically resume operations ``within a few days,'' he said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Aaron Clark in New York at aclark27@bloomberg.net