Malaysian offshore services provider Icon Offshore has completed the sale of its Perisai Pacific 101 jackup drilling rig to ADES.
The 2014-built rig was sold to ADES for $85 million in cash and the disposal of the rig was completed on November 22, 2022.
When it first announced the deal to sell the rig, Icon Offshore stated that the proposed sale provided an opportunity for it to unlock significant value and monetize its investment in the rig at a significant profit.
Icon, which bought the rig in 2020 for a little over $40 million, said the sale would allow it to streamline its operations and use its financial resources to focus on the offshore support vessel business.
"Our group will not only further enhance and strengthen its presence in its remaining current activities, but will also consider other viable investment opportunities," Icon said in October.
Icon then said that the sale did not mean the company would exit the offshore drilling business, as it still owns the license to operate offshore drilling business. The company said it would seek to bareboat charter third party rigs for future tenders as part of its plan to remain active in the drilling business.
Also, it said in October that part of the proceeds arising from the Perisai Pacific 101 rig sale were intended to be used for the proposed distribution via dividends and/or special dividends to its shareholders.
As for the buyer, ADES, the company has been on a jack-up rig shopping spree this year.
Back in October, ADES acquired seven Seadrill offshore rigs, bringing ADES’s total offshore fleet to 48 rigs. ADES said the acquisition of Seadrill rigs made it "the largest jack-up operator in the world."
In addition, earlier this month, ADES signed a bareboat charter with Singapore's Keppel for two jack-up rigs - the Cantarell III and Cantarell IV - to be deployed in Saudi Arabia.
The charters will be for a period of five years and are expected to start in 1H 2023. The deal brought the total number of rigs Keppel O&M has on charter with ADES to four, as ADES in May agreed to charter two newbuild jack-up rigs from Keppel O&M.
Apart from the already mentioned companies, since the late 2021, ADES has bought jack-up rigs from Aban Offshore, Maersk Drilling, Noble Corp., Vantage Drilling, and Valaris.
ADES offers its services to oil companies in the Middle East and North Africa.
Elsewhere in the Middle East, the UAE-based drilling firm ADNOC Drilling on Thursday took delivery of the first of three newbuild jack-up rigs from Keppel. The rigs were originally ordered by Borr Drilling, which eventually novated the drilling contracts to ADNOC Drilling.