Seadrill grabs multi-well contract for West Carina drillship

Offshore drilling company Seadrill has won a contract for its West Carina drillship with Thai PTTEP.

The contract is expected to begin in January 2020 and last until June. The drillship will work for PTTEP in Malaysia, and the oil company will have options to extend the contract further, Seadrill.

According to remarks made during Q3 2019 earnings call last week, Seadrill CEO Anton Dibowitz said the contract for the 2014-built drillship was for four firm wells plus six optional wells.

Dibowitz said that the contract “fits nicely with a five-year classing currently underway in Malaysia.”

Per the call transcript by the Motley Fool, the CEO said the dayrate secured demonstrated the continued strengthening of the high specification floater market; however, he didn’t say what the dayrate for the West Carina was.

Related: Seadrill: Offshore drilling market recovering, but at ‘lower pace’

Asked by an analyst about the clean dayrate for the West Carina, Dibowitz said that while Seadrill was working with clients to get them on board with disclosing dayrates publicly, customers had their reasons to be sensitive around it so that he couldn’t comment more on that.

He did say that reports out there issued by brokers and analysts regarding the West Carina dayrate were fairly accurate. Norway-based rig broker Bassoe Offshore has estimated the dayrate to be around $230,000.

This is an increase compared to the rig’s previous contracts with Petronas in Brunei and Malaysia, which, according to Bassoe, had dayrates of $175,000, but it’s still much lower compared to a deal the rig had had with Petrobras between 2015 – 2018. According to Bassoe Offshore, this contract had a dayrate of $481.000.

Offshore Energy Today Staff

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