Valaris scores drillship deal brace with Shell

Offshore drilling contractor Valaris has been awarded two one-well contracts for one of its drillships by oil major Shell.

Valaris said on Tuesday that the two contracts were awarded by Shell subsidiaries Shell Namibia Upstream B.V. and Shell Sao Tome and Principe B.V.

The two deals entail work offshore Namibia and Sao Tome and Principe, respectively, for the Valaris DS-10 drillship.

Valaris added that the precise timing of the first contract was yet to be confirmed, but it is expected to begin in the fourth quarter of 2021.

The Sao Tome and Principe contract will follow on directly from the Namibia contract. Valaris further stated that the contracts have an estimated duration of 60 days each.

Just recently, Valaris stated in its second-quarter 2021 report that it was seeing early signs of recovery in rig demand evidenced by new contracts for its fleet of drillships, semi-submersible rigs, and jack-ups, which will result in three rigs coming back from the stacked to operational mode.

Since the start of the year, the company has been one of the most active offshore drillers when it comes to winning contracts.

In the first quarter of 2021 alone, Valaris was able to rake in sixteen new contracts for its rigs.

Since then, the company scored nine more deals for its rigs with these two latest ones with Shell being the tenth and eleventh.

The recent list of clients notes the who’s who of oil and gas firms like the North Oil Company, Chevron, TotalEnergies, Equinor, W&T Offshore, Mubadala, ARO Drilling, BP, Saudi Aramco, and now Shell.