Three new rig deals add $75 million to Transocean’s backlog

Offshore drilling contractor Transocean has secured three new drilling contracts, adding around $75 million to its backlog.

According to Transocean’s quarterly fleet status report released on Thursday, the longest of the three contracts is with Hurricane Energy for the Paul B. Lloyd, Jr. semi-submersible drilling rig. The rig will be used for operation in the UK North Sea.

Hurricane has agreed to take the 1990-built rig on a 255-day contract, starting February 2020.

The report shows the contract is split into two terms, where the dayrate would be $160,000 between February and April 2020, and would then rise to $205,000 in the February – September 2020 period. The rig’s current contract with BP in the UK expires this month.

In Brunei, Transocean has won a contract for its Deepwater Nautilus semi-submersible drilling unit. The 45-day contract is with Shell and is expected to start in February 2020. Transocean shared that the dayrate would be $175,000. The rig is currently in Malaysia, on a contract with Shell. The current contract is set to expire in November.

The third contract secured in the quarter is for the Discoverer India ultra-deepwater drillship in Egypt, where Burullus exercised a one-well option in Egypt, in direct continuation of the current contract which is set to expire in December.

The new contract, set to last until April 2020, will have an increased dayrate – $175,000 – compared to the current dayrate of $135,000.

With the latest contracts, Transocean’s backlog stands at $10.8 billion. This is a drop compared to a total backlog of $11.4 billion disclosed in the previous fleet status report in July when the company added 5 new contracts worth $158 million.

Offshore Energy Today Staff

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