In a January letter to the Texas Workforce Commission, Noble Drilling said it would lay off up to 120 workers in March after the company stacks the semisubmersible Noble Danny Adkins. The rig is currently working in the Gulf of Mexico.

Sugar Land, Texas-based Noble said in the Jan. 12 letter that 100 to 120 workers would be laid off over a two-week period beginning March 14. The company said it would retain some workers at the stacking location.

In the letter from Joe Knight, Noble’s personnel director, he wrote that although the company may recall some workers if the Danny Adkins receives a new contract, it is expected that the layoffs are permanent.

The announcement comes less than two months after Noble’s Nov. 30 notice sent to the commission that it was stacking the semisubmersible Noble Jim Day. Up to 130 workers from the Jim Day will be let go beginning Jan. 26.

David Krapf has been editor of WorkBoat, the nation’s leading trade magazine for the inland and coastal waterways industry, since 1999. He is responsible for overseeing the editorial direction of the publication. Krapf has been in the publishing industry since 1987, beginning as a reporter and editor with daily and weekly newspapers in the Houston area. He also was the editor of a transportation industry daily in New Orleans before joining WorkBoat as a contributing editor in 1992. He has been covering the transportation industry since 1989, and has a degree in business administration from the State University of New York at Oswego, and also studied journalism at the University of Houston.