Transocean’s New Drillship Bound for Indonesia

Transocean, one of the world’s largest offshore drilling contractors, yesterday announced that it has secured a contract for its newbuild, ultra-deepwater drillship, Deepwater Asgard.

The Swiss-based company revealed the information in its fleet status report, without providing information on who the client was, but only said it was a major integrated international oil company.

Under the agreement, the drillship will be used for work offshore Indonesia on a three-year contract at a dayrate of $600.000.

The contract is scheduled to start in the first quarter of 2014, after shipyard delivery and customer acceptance. The contract will contribute an estimated backlog of $657 million, excluding mobilization.

The Deepwater Asgard, currently under construction at the Daewoo’s shipyard in South Korea, will be capable of operating in water depths up to 12,000 feet and drilling wells up to 40,000 feet deep.

“With this award, all of the company’s newbuild rigs are under contract,” said Transocean in its report.