Oil major Shell has booked a semi-submersible drilling rig for its operations in Namibia, where it recently struck a major offshore oil discovery.
Offshore rig owner Northern Ocean said Thursday that Shell Upstream Namibia B.V., a subsidiary of Shell, had awarded it a contract for the Deepsea Bollsta semi-submersible drilling rig.
The contract for the 2019-built offshore drilling rig is expected to start in the middle of the fourth quarter of 2022 and has an estimated firm duration of twelve months plus one six-month option.
The contract adds around $124 million of firm revenue backlog to Northern Ocean, excluding the option.
According to Northern Ocean, Odfjell Drilling, the rig's recently appointed operations manager, has begun reactivation activities and mobilization preparation.
Private placement to fund reactivation costs
To fund the reactivation costs, working capital and other general corporate purposes, Northern Ocean has retained Fearnley Securities AS, Danske Bank A/S, Norwegian branch, DNB Markets, a part of DNB Bank ASA, Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB (publ) and SpareBank 1 Markets AS as Joint Lead Bookrunners to advise on and effect a private placement of new shares, with the intention to raise gross proceeds of approx.
$40 million.
The subscription price for the new shares will be determined by the company’s board of directors based on an accelerated book-building process, Northern Ocean said.
Hemen Holding Ltd, the company’s largest shareholder with approx. 39% has to the Managers firmly expressed its intention of subscribing for shares in the Private Placement to maintain its shareholdings, the company said. Hemen Holding is a company indirectly controlled by trusts established by the billionaire John Fredriksen for the benefit of his immediate family.
The Private Placement will be directed towards Norwegian and international investors, subject to applicable exemptions from relevant registration, filing and prospectus requirements, and subject to other applicable selling
restrictions.
The minimum application and allocation amount has been set to the NOK equivalent of EUR 100,000.
"The application period for the Private Placement commences today, on 25 August 2022 at 16:30 CEST, and is expected to close no later than 26 August 2022 at 08:00 CEST," the company said.