Seadrill’s drillship picks up 1,095-day drilling job offshore Brazil

Bermuda-headquartered offshore drilling contractor Seadrill has won a multimillion-dollar assignment off the coast of Brazil for one of its drillships, which will work for the South American country’s state-owned energy giant Petrobras.

Following a competitive tender process, the 1,095-day contract will enable the West Tellus ultra-deepwater drillship to undertake a drilling campaign on the Sépia and Atapu fields offshore Brazil.

Seatrium is building two floating production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) units destined to be deployed at the two fields in the pre-salt Santos Basin.

The FPSO P-84 will operate at the Atapu field, which is operated by Petrobras (65.7%) in partnership with Shell (16.7%), TotalEnergies (15%), Petrogal Brasil (1.7%), and Pré-Sal Petróleo (PPSA) (0.9%).

On the other hand, the FPSO P-85, set to operate in the Sépia field, is 55.3%-owned by Petrobras, with partners TotalEnergies (16.9%), Petronas (12.7%), QatarEnergy (12.7%), and Petrogal Brasil (2.4%).

The new assignment with Petrobras will contribute approximately $498 million to Seadrill’s order backlog, including additional services and excluding a mobilization fee of $41 million.

Simon Johnson, Seadrill’s President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), commented: “This contract and the recently announced award for West Jupiter deepens our relationship with a key customer at the heart of the deepwater market

“These fixtures provide approximately $1 billion of additional backlog and a meaningful uplift to earnings and free cash flow beginning in 2026.”

The drilling program, which is set to start in the first quarter of 2026, comes with an optional period of up to 305 additional days, which can be utilized to extend the rig’s assignment.

The 2013-built West Tellus is a sixth-generation DP3 drillship, which was constructed by Samsung Shipyard in South Korea. The rig can accommodate 200 people.

The West Tellus drillship has a long history of working for Petrobras in Brazil. Previously, the rig worked for the Brazilian firm under a contract awarded back in November 2019.

As Petrobras requested an earlier termination of the deal, as reported in May 2021, the rig’s assignment was due to end in September 2021 under a day rate of $211,311.

Come November 2021, Seadrill secured another contract with the Brazilian giant for its West Tellus drillship to work on the Búzios field offshore Brazil.

The job began in 2023, only a week after the West Jupiter drillship did the same.