Pacific Drilling: Two rig contracts in, one out

Debt-laden offshore driller Pacific Drilling has managed to secure two contracts for its drillships.

The driller, which on Monday said it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, has found more work for its Pacific Bora and Pacific Santa Ana drillships.

Oil company Erin Energy has exercised its option to extend the contract for the Pacific Bora. The previous operations completed on October 3, 2017. The new, one-well, contract starts late in November, and is on a dayrate of $150,000.

Offshore Energy Today previously reported, based on data from VesselsValue, that Pacific Drilling had secured a deal with Petronas.

This has now been confirmed by the drilling company, who on Monday said that Pacific Santa Ana drillship would be performing integrated services for a plug and abandonment project in Mauritania, for the Malaysian company.

According to Pacific Drilling, the contract is estimated at 159 days with an option to extend.

Worth noting, the dayrate for the Pacific Santa Ana is higher than the one originally reported by VesselsValue.

Pacific Drilling, with a fleet of seven ultra-deepwater drillships, on Monday revealed the dayrate with Petronas $265.000. VesselsValue had reported a dayrate of $170,000.

For comparison, Pacific Santa Ana’s previous long term contract with Chevron, which ended in January 2017, the rig had a dayrate of more than $480.000.

While securing new contracts for the two drillships, the company saw its contract with Pacific Scirocco expire. The drillship was let go by Hyperdynamics which recently failed to find oil in its Fatala-1 well offshore Guinea, meaning the oil company decided not to extend the contract for three optional wells.

This now leaves the drilling company with three rigs under a contract, and four stacked in Tenerife, waiting for work.