Another Aban rig joins ADES fleet

India’s offshore drilling contractor Aban Offshore has closed the sale of another jack-up drilling rig to the UAE-based ADES International.

Originally, Aban Offshore announced a sale agreement for four jack-up drilling rigs – Deep Driller 2, Deep Driller 4, Deep Driller 5, and Deep Driller 6 – in April 2022, explaining that the buyer of all four was ADES International.

The sale of these rigs, anticipated to be completed on 31 May 2022, was expected to bring approximately $106 million. As explained at the time, the first two were sold for $26 million each and the other two for $27 million each.

The company followed up on its initial announcement on 31 May 2022, elaborating that it had sold the Deep Driller 5 rig, however, as the sale of the remaining three rigs could not be completed, it was extended to 30 June 2022.

In a statement from 24 June 2022, India’s offshore drilling contractor confirmed that it had sold the Deep Driller 4 rig and a few days later, on 30 June 2022, the firm disclosed that the transaction for the remaining two rigs – Deep Driller 2 and Deep Driller 6 – could not be completed. Therefore, the date of completion of the transaction was extended to 31 July 2022.

In an update on the sale from last week, India’s Aban informed that the sale of the Deep Driller 6 rig, based on a KFELS SUPER B Class design and owned by the firm’s step down subsidiary, was completed on 8 July 2022.

This still leaves the transaction of the Deep Driller 2 rig to be closed, which is anticipated to be done by the end of the month.

Aban Offshore has worked actively on selling some of its rigs recently. The most recent sale was completed in June 2022 for the Deep Driller 8 jack-up rig, which was sold to UAE’s ADNOC Drilling for about $28 million.