The next year will be another challenging time for offshore drillers due to continuing supply overhang even though prices are starting to improve, the chief executive of rig firm Seadrill told Reuters on Tuesday.
The Oslo- and New York-listed company, controlled by Norwegian-born billionaire John Fredriksen, reported on Tuesday its first quarterly results after emerging from U.S. Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July.
"We've always known that, given significant oversupply of rigs, 2019 is going to be a challenging year, and our opinion hasn't changed," Seadrill Chief Executive Anton Dibowitz said in an interview.
Dibowitz, however, said that a recent fall in North Sea oil price to below $60 a barrel from a four-year peak of $86 in October, should not change oil company plans to invest more in search for offshore barrels to meet growing demand.
(Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis, editing by Gwladys Fouche)