Transocean is to scrap two idle rigs and has idled three others as contracts have been dropped, while others have been extended.
The floaters M.G. Hulme, Jr. and GSF Rig 140 were classified as held for sale. Transocean says these rigs will be recycled. The Development Driller III and Discoverer India are now idle. Discoverer India was previously working for Reliance in the US Gulf of Mexico, while Development Driller III was working in the same region for BP.
Chevron has cut short its contract on Transocean's ultra deepwater drilling rig Deepwater Asgard, effective January this year, after taking the firm's newbuild Deepwater Conquerer on contract. This means the Deepwater Asgard is also now idle.
The newbuild rig started operations for Chevron on a five-year, US$589,000 day rate contract in the US Gulf of Mexico on 31 December.
The Deepwater Asgard, which was contracted to Chevron from April 2015 to June this year, was on a $600,000 day rate.
Transocean will be compensated for the early termination of the Deepwater Asgard through a lump-sum payment of about $79 million, based on the operating dayrate less the operating cost per day.
Meanwhile, Transocean has confirmed a three-well contract offshore Myanmar for its Dhirubhai Deepwater KG2 deepwater drillship. Transocean hasn't disclosed the client or the day rate.
However, Australia's Woodside Energy had previously disclosed it had contracted the rig for a drilling program in Block AD-7 and Block A6 in the Rakhine basin, starting this month.
Hurricane Energy has exercised a one well option on the Transocean Spitsbergen, extending contract, initially from July to December this year, out to March 2017, for drilling west of Shetland. Hurricane is currently using the rig to drill its Halifax well, west of Shetland, following a well on its Lincoln structure, also west of Shetland.
Suncor Energy has taken on the Transocean Barents for drilling offshore Canada from July this year to September 2018. The rig had been idle since 2015.
The Paul B. Loyd, Jr semisubmersible has been awarded a contract extension of approximately 30 days by operator BP for work in the northern North Sea, taking the rig's contract out to July 2017.
Estimated 2017 out of service days increased by 24 days, due to contract preparation and mobilization associated with the Dhirubhai Deepwater KG2.
As of 9 February 2017, Transocean's contract backlog was $11.3 billion.
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