Vantage to manage another rig for Aquadrill

Offshore drilling contractor Vantage has been put in charge of managing and marketing a semi-submersible drilling rig owned by Aquadrill, formerly known as Seadrill Partners.

On 21 January 2022, Aquadrill and a subsidiary of Vantage Holdings International have reached an agreement for Vantage to manage and market the UDW harsh environment semi-submersible, Aquarius. The 2009-built rig was previously managed by Odfjell Drilling and its latest known location was in Canada, according to Aquadrill’s fleet status report from November 2021.

Ihab Toma, CEO of Vantage, stated: “We are delighted that Aquadrill have placed their trust in the Vantage Management platform, to market, re-activate and operate the Aquarius.

“Since commencing to manage Aquadrill fleet in May 21, we have assisted in the recycling and repurposing of two units, have contracted the Capella with Premier and Repsol in Indonesia, and are actively bidding the Polaris and now the Aquarius.”

Namely, Vantage was approved as a manager of four deepwater floating rigs for Aquadrill in March 2021 while the company was under Chapter 11 and still named Seadrill Partners. The management agreement included Polaris and Capella drillships and the semi-submersibles Leo and Sirius.

Aquadrill, then Seadrill Partners, emerged from bankruptcy in May 2021 and later on revealed the name change following a contract award with Equinor for the Vela drillship.

In October 2021, Aquadrill sold both Sirius and Leo semi-submersible rigs managed by Vantage with the latter going to BW Energy for repurposing into a floating production unit for the Kudu gas field offshore Namibia.

In the same period, Aquadrill also reached an agreement to provide the drillship Capella for a two-well contract for operations in Indonesia. Scheduled to start this quarter, the contract includes one well with Premier Oil and one with Repsol.

Meanwhile, Vantage made an agreement to sell three of its jack-up rigs to ADES for a price tag of $170 million. The agreement was made last December, less than two months after ADES had bought four jack-up rigs from another rig owner, Noble Corporation, paying $292 million.

Vantage and ADES also agreed to collaborate on exploring future commercial and operational opportunities.