Swissco doubles drilling rig fleet

Singapore’s Swissco Holdings Limited, has completed the acquisition of four additional mobile offshore drilling units, bringing the fleet of rigs to eight.

As announced on 15 August 2014 on the Singapore Exchange, the rigs have up to two-year contracts worth about US$94.8 million and are being deployed in Latin America.

Kelvin Tang, Group Chief Investment Officer of Swissco, said: “Our expansion into the upstream continues to gain momentum with the completion of this acquisition. In a span of about two months since we acquired the rig business of Scott and English Energy Pte Ltd, we have doubled our rig count. Our strategy of acquiring cost-efficient and good quality rigs and deploying them in high-demand areas such as Latin America enables us to optimise our investment within a short period of time. As we now have a significant presence in this region, where the oil fields have substantial reserves, our management is confident that our rigs will be able to receive new long term contracts once the existing contracts expire.

“With our rigs deployed in Latin America, we are well-positioned to ride on the robust industry momentum as the region embarks on a new wave of oil exploration and production activities. With our healthy level of gearing, we have ample headroom for growth that will allow us to take advantage of attractive opportunities,”  Tang said