Seadrill Partners LLC and Seadrill Ltd. entered into an agreement to sell the ultra deepwater drillship West Vela to the company’s 51% owned subsidiary Seadrill Capricorn Holdings LLC.
Seadrill says the acquisition, that includes all of the ownership interests in the entities that own and operate the drillship, is expected to close within three days and will be done through a series of purchases, contributions and assumption of debt.
According to Seadrill, the implied purchase price of the West Vela acquisition is US$900 million, minus $433 million of outstanding debt. The company says it expects its portion of the net purchase price after debt to be $238 million.
The West Vela is a sixth generation, dynamically positioned drillship delivered from the Samsung shipyard in 2013 to its current customer, BP. The West Vela is expected to carry out operations in the US Gulf of Mexico until the end of its contract in November 2020. Under the terms of the contract, BP will continue to pay a daily rate of $565,000 per day plus approximately $44,000 per day as a mobilization fee paid over the term of the contract.
Under the terms of the acquisition agreement, Seadrill Capricorn Holdings will pay Seadrill $40,000 per day of day rate revenue actually received as well as the $44,000 per day mobilization fee. Both payments will cease at the end of the current contract.
According to Seadrill, the acquisition will increase the company’s assess diversification as well as increase its revenue backlog to $6 billion and its average contract term to 3.6 years, as of 3 November 2014.
TheWest Vela is capable of drilling in water to 12,000ft and to a total depth of 40,000ft. It features dual derricks and hook load capacity of 1250-tonne. It was one of the first ships out of the Samsung yard equipped with seven-ram BOP stacks.
Late last month, Seadrill’s West Prospero spudded Lundin Petroleum’s Kitabu-1 exploration well in Block SB307/208, offshore Sabah, Malaysia. The jackup rig will drill to a depth of 2270m in approximately 50m water depth. Kitabu is estimated to contain unrisked, gross prospective resources of 71MMboe.
Image of the West Vela, from Seadrill.
Read more:
Lundin begins Kitabu off Malaysia
Ultra-deepwater ships poised to join the fleet
Subscribe
