Bloody Hell!....yet more drillships soon to be ordered!

[c.captain]

Read the story here!

DryShips has entered into an agreement with a major South Korean shipyard, for the option to construct up to four ultra deepwater drillships. The new orders would be sisterships of the drillships under construction with further upgrades to the specification. Each of the four options can be declared within twelve months of this agreement, with deliveries ranging from 2013 until 2014. The total project cost is estimated to be about $600 million per drillship. The agreement includes a non-refundable slot reservation fee of $24.8 million per drillship that will be applied to the drillship contract price if the options are exercised

I really doubt DryShips would sign these options each with a $25M deal breaker fee if they did not intend to go ahead with construction.

If you add these four ships to the mix, just in the past two weeks 7 new deepwater drillships ordered in Korea and this on top of the 30 odd deepwater rigs being delivered now and in the next two years! What the F do these companies know about the future of oil? Something is brewing that makes these owners believe that the demand for latest generation rigs is going to explode? It's either that or this is the biggest overbuilding boom in maritime/offshore history!

Where in the hell are all the people to run these going to come from? The wages are going to have to skyrocket to unseen heights so if you aren't in drilling now, better find a way in so you can ride this wave because it is going to be gnarly dude!

[Brixxx]

Better yet where are they going to put all the Drill ships? are they going start drilling in the US? Doubt it maybe the government will give some permits to drill by 2014. I just lost my job working on an osv as mate and dpo because of the lack of work due to the governments lack to issue more permits the company I work for is stacking boats left and right and preparing for the worse I'm currently looking for work in a industry that's quickly going overseas like the rest of the country...

[c.captain]

Here's the article about Seadrill's order for three more.

[cmjeff]

What the F do these companies know about the future of oil?

That's easy: Petrobras seeks partners for Drillships

Where in the hell are all the people to run these going to come from?

See that 3rd mate sitting behind the DP console off your ship with a clueless look on his/her face? They will be the captain in 3-5 years.

Scary, eh?