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Demand for offshore rigs escalates GlobalSantaFe, Sevan order ultra-deepwater drill rigs ; 17 deepwater drillships now on order Ray Tyson For Petroleum News
Demand for offshore drilling rigs capable of working in 10,000 feet of water continues to escalate, with Houston, Texas-based GlobalSantaFe and an affiliate of Norway’s Sevan Marine ASA placing the most recent orders, totaling $1.14 billion.
Records show there are now 17 deepwater drillships on order or under construction and 40 in service worldwide. Additionally, 40 deepwater semi-submersible drilling rigs are on order or under construction and 167 in service. Many of the new-build orders were placed during the past few years, as oil prices strengthened and exploration and development activities moved into increasingly deeper waters.
GlobalSantaFe, awaiting shareholder and U.S. regulatory approval for its blockbuster merger with fellow offshore drilling major Transocean Inc., executed an agreement with Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries Ltd., to build a new $740 million “ultra-deepwater” exploration and development drillship for delivery in September 2010, the company announced Sept. 11.
The new vessel, which is to be built in Ulsan, Korea, will be an enhanced version of GlobalSantaFe’s GSF C.R. Luigs and GSF Jack Ryan drillships, which entered service in 2000. Like the Luigs and Ryan, the new rig will be capable of drilling in water depths up to 10,000 feet and could be upgraded to 12,000 feet, the company said.
The new rig also will feature advanced dynamic positioning capabilities, triple activity load paths, a derrick rated for 4 million pounds, dual liquid-storage systems, larger quarters and an efficient deck design that provides significantly more space than previous-generation drillships.
“This next-generation drillship resulted from listening to our customers, assessing the growing need for deepwater capacity and combining the best features of our drillships and semi-submersibles in a single unit capable of meeting our customers’ full range of exploration and development drilling needs,” said Jon Marshall, GlobalSantaFe’s president and chief executive officer.
No drilling contract in hand However, GlobalSantaFe is moving ahead with no drilling contract to support construction costs, a risk which “is clearly a departure from our much more conservative past approach,” Marshall conceded.
He explained: “We would not have taken such a capital risk without a very high degree of confidence in the ongoing strength of the ultra-deepwater market.”
Moreover, GlobalSantaFe’s construction contract with Hyundai protects the company from rising costs, Marshall said, adding that he is confident of securing an “attractive long-term contract well in advance of delivery.”
GlobalSantaFe merger partner Transocean already has ordered four ultra-deepwater drillships, while GlobalSantaFe previously ordered a semi-submersible rig. The two companies will have a combined market value of around $53 billion.
Meanwhile, Sevan Marine affiliate Sevan Drilling Pte Ltd. completed a $400 million financing package for its latest, sixth generation circular designed “ultra-deepwater” drilling rig, to be delivered to Brazil’s Petrobras Americas at a yet undisclosed time in the future. The rig is to be named the Sevan Deepsea Driller.
“We are pleased to announce this bank facility, which completes the financing of the advanced deepwater drilling unit … based on Sevan’s own proprietary technology,” said Jan Erik Tveteraas, Sevan Marine’s chief executive officer.
Sevan Drilling signed the agreement for a senior debt project finance with Mandated Lead Arrangers GE Energy Financial Services, GE Transportation Finance and DVB Group Merchant Bank (Asia) Ltd. The facility, fully underwritten by the lead arrangers, is partially guaranteed by the Norwegian Export Credit Agency and is in the process of being syndicated to a limited group of international banks by GE Capital Markets, Sevan said.
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