Diamond Offshore scoops new rig deals

Houston-based offshore driller Diamond Offshore has won several new contracts for its drilling rigs.

In the company’s fleet status announced on Monday, February 12 Diamond Offshore said that the Ocean Guardian semi-submersible drilling rig scored a contract with Chevron in the UK.

Namely, the 1985-built rig has been awarded a two-well contract with Chevron, starting in late May and ending late September 2018. The report further states that the start date for the rig’s preceding contract with Decipher, also in the UK, has been changed from mid-February to late-February and the end date from mid-May to late May. The rates for these two contracts have not been disclosed.

The 2008-built Ocean Monarch semi-submersible rig has won a well-based contract with Cooper and Exxon in Australia from mid-March to mid-September 2018 while the 2009-built Ocean Valor got a two-year extension.

Ocean Valor has been working for Petrobras since its delivery and it was supposed to work for the Brazilian oil giant until October 2018. However, in August 2016 Petrobras terminated the contract two years earlier than planned prompting Diamond to file a lawsuit against Petrobras for unlawful termination.

A presiding panel of appellate judges ruled on March 15, 2017, that the Ocean Valor contract would remain in effect.

The rig is now in an extended standby mode until late September 2018. Following the expiry of this period, the rig will in early October 2018 start a two-year contract with Petrobras until late September 2020. The rig’s dayrate under this two-year extension will be $289,000.

Further according to the report, the Ocean Valiant rig has been awarded a well-based contract from Maersk in the UK with end date set for mid-December 2019. The rig has been working for Maersk since early November 2016 until early February 2018 under 13 wells plus priced options contract.

A rig that got its deal shortened was the Ocean Apex. The rig is working on a one-well contract with Woodside off Australia. The initial contract was from mid-February until early April. Diamond said that the deal was shortened by a month and would end in early March.

The 2008-built jack-up rig Ocean Scepter has been stacked in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico and classified as held for sale.

Also on Monday, Diamond posted a loss of $31.94 million for the fourth quarter of 2017 compared to a profit of $116.1 million in the same period of 2016.

Offshore Energy Today Staff