Transocean’s new drillship starts ten-year contract with Shell
Transocean-owned new-build ultra-deepwater drillship Deepwater Pontus has started operations for Shell in the US Gulf of Mexico.
Transocean said in its fleet status report on the 26th October that the Deepwater Pontus drillship began its ten-year contract with Shell in late October. The drillship is operating under a US$519,000 day-rate and the contract end date is set for October 2027.
South Korea’s Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering had delivered the DSME 12000 ultra-deepwater drillship to Transocean back in July.
According to its report, Transocean also agreed with SembCorp Marine’s subsidiary, Jurong Shipyard, to enhance the two new-build drillships by increasing the hook load capacity to three million pounds.
With the upgrade, the company further delayed the delivery dates on each rig. The drillships are expected to be delivered in the second and fourth quarter of 2020.
The offshore contractor also said in its report that its contract backlog currently stands at US$9.4 billion.
It was previously reported three Transocean rigs getting new contracts. Transocean has not confirmed these contract awards in fleet status report. The three rigs in question are the Deepwater Nautilus, Deepwater Invictus and Paul B Loyd, Jr.
An undisclosed charterer hired the 2000-built semi-sub Deepwater Nautilus on the 8th August for work in south-east Asia. The drilling rig was hired for a four-month deal from the 1st November to the 28th February 2018.
Furthermore, the Deepwater Invictus drillship won a US$106 million contract with BHP Billiton and will work for the company in the US Gulf of Mexico from April 2018 until April 2020.
Finally, Paul B Loyd, Jr semi-submersible drilling rig was awarded two contracts, both in the UK North Sea. The first is with Hurricane Energy to complete the previously drilled Lancaster 205/21a-6 and 205/21a-7Z horizontal production wells.
The contract with Hurricane has three one-well priced options and will last from March to May 2018.
The second contract for the semi-sub is with Zennor Petroleum for two-wells plus two one-well priced options from May to October 2018.
Three rigs idled, one deal shortened
After the Deepwater Asgard drillship completed its contract in the US Gulf of Mexico with Deep Gulf Energy, the rig went idle while the contract for the drillship Discoverer Clear Leader with Chevron was shortened by almost a year.
Namely, the end date for the contract with Chevron was moved from October 2018 to November 2017 and the day-rate was reduced from US$575,000 to US$570,000.
Two more rigs were idled in October, namely, the 2010-built Dhirubhai Deepwater KG2 and the 2009-built Development Driller III. According to Transocean’s previous fleet status report, the KG 2 was supposed to work for Australia’s Woodside offshore Myanmar until December 2017.
The Development Driller III was idled after completing a deal with an undisclosed client in September.