Keppel Offshore & Marine subsidiary Keppel FELS has has delivered the first of five jackups to Borr Drilling.
The first is the jackup rig SAGA, a KFELS Super B Class design rig. KFELS Super B Class rigs are designed to operate in 400ft water depth and drill to 35,000ft. It has a two million pound drilling system and a maximum combined cantilever load of 3700kips.
The SAGA is the 12th KFELS Super B Class rig and the 66th rig of the KFELS B class family to enter the market, says Chris Ong, CEO of Keppel O&M.
"As the drilling market recovers, the quality and capabilities of our KFELS B Class designs would be important differentiators for rig owners seeking efficient and reliable operations. Our rigs have set the industry benchmark and we are confident that this rig will be just as successful when deployed."
Borr Drilling CEO Simon Johnson said: "Jackup utilization is improving as we recover from the bottom of the business cycle. The market preferentially rewards contractors who invest in the latest designs from the best shipyards."
Borr Drilling is a newcomer to the industry. Borr's CEO Rune Magnus Lundetrae previously served as Seadrill's CFO from 2012-2015. Borr's COO Svend Anton Maier worked at Seadrill from 2007-2016, before that he was at Transocean and Ross Offshore.
In May last year, Transocean completed the sell of its jackup fleet to Borr Drilling for about US$1.35 billion. The sale included the company’s 10 high-specification jackups and five jackups under construction at Keppel FELS Ltd’s shipyard in Singapore.
In October last year, Borr Drilling has signed an agreement to acquire nine jackup rigs from Sembcorp Marine subsidiary PPL Shipyard, taking its fleet to 26 jackups, once all rigs under construction have been delivered.
The acquired rigs have been built or are under construction at PPL's yard in Singapore. Seven out of the nine rigs have drilling packages from Cameron (a Schlumberger company) while all nine rigs have Cameron BOPs.
The deal was expected to be worth about $1.3 billion, with delivery of the first of the rigs, at the time, due in Q4 2017, with the remaining rigs being delivered quarterly thereafter until the last rig is delivered in Q1 2019.