Offshore drilling contractor Transocean has won contracts for two of its harsh environment semi-submersible drilling rigs. The contracts are worth around $113 million in total for the firm part.
Transocean said that its Transocean Endurance offshore drilling rig had secured a multi-well plug and abandonment contract in Australia with an unnamed independent operator.
The estimated 240-day contract is expected to start in January 2024 and contribute approximately $91 million in backlog, excluding fees for mobilization.
The unnamed client will have a series of extension options, potentially keeping the Transocean Endurance in Australia through the fourth quarter of 2025.
In Norway, oil company Wintershall DEA exercised a one-well option on the Transocean Norge semi-submersible drilling rig.
The well is expected to start in May 2023 ahead of the existing firm term for 60 days and contribute approximately $22 million in backlog.
Worth noting, the news of the contracts for the Transocean Endurance and Transocean Norge, comes just a day after Transocean secured long-term contracts in Norway for another semi-sub pair - Transocean Encourage and Transocean Enabler. Read more here.
"These fixtures represent additional evidence of the strength of this cyclical recovery, notably for our harsh environment assets,” said Jeremy Thigpen, Transocean’s Chief Executive Officer. “Coupled with the awards for the Transocean Enabler and Transocean Encourage that were recently announced, we have added an incremental $494 million in backlog from our high-specification harsh environment fleet.”
In other related news, Transocean's Transocean Barents semi-submersible drilling rig recently started drilling the "highly prospective" Benriach Well in the Laggan Tormore area, west of Shetland, UK, for TotalEnergies.