By David Wethe and Alix Steel (Bloomberg) -- Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc. said it’s nearly doubling rental rates for deepwater drillships as oil explorers return to sea. The increase involves long-term rig leases beginning in 2020 and beyond, Chief Executive Officer Marc Edwards said Wednesday in an interview on Bloomberg TV. The proliferation of onshore shale drilling in … [Read more...]
Offshore Drillers Eye Market Recovery by 2020
By John Benny Oct 15 (Reuters) - Battered oil and gas drilling companies are finally seeing piecemeal signs that the prices they charge for offshore rigs are bottoming out with Brent crude selling for more than $80 a barrel and some are forecasting a full turn in the market by 2020. At the depths of a global slide that took oil below $27 a barrel in early 2016, daily rates … [Read more...]
$50 Oil Boosts Offshore Drillers’ Hopes of Comeback
By David Wethe (Bloomberg) -- The “magic” of $50 oil is now in the sights of deep-sea drillers as they try to lure customer spending from shale wells on land. And after more than three years of pain, that prospect has some investors excited. Transocean Ltd. rose the most in more than eight months after the world’s biggest provider of offshore rigs predicted explorers could … [Read more...]
BP Scraps Plans to Drill Off Southern Australia Coast, Says ‘Ocean Greatwhite’ Contract Not Impacted
By Perry Williams (Bloomberg) -- BP Plc has abandoned oil exploration in the offshore Great Australian Bight, five years after it began searching for resources in one of the world’s last frontier regions and before it could drill a single well. The decision to step away from the project off the country’s southern coast follows a review of the company’s upstream … [Read more...]
Hyundai Heavy Delivers World’s Largest Semi-Submersible Drilling Rig
South Korean shipbuilder Hyundai Heavy Industries says it has delivered the world's largest semi-submersible drilling rig to Diamond Offshore. The rig, named Ocean Greatwhite, was delivered to the Houston-based drilling contractor on July 2015. At 123 meters long by 78 meters wide, the semi-submersible is touted as the world's largest semi-submersible drilling rig, according … [Read more...]