UK-headquartered offshore driller Ensco has announced new contracts for a pair of drillships offshore Nigeria and another offshore Ivory Coast.
ENSCO DS-4 commences a new two-year contract, with additional one-year option, in August for Chevron operating offshore Nigeria. The drillship was recently reactivated, having been stacked in Tenerife.
Additionally, ENSCO DS-10 has been contracted to Shell for work offshore Nigeria beginning in the first quarter of 2018. The vessel has been contracted for one year with five one-year options available to Shell if required. Delivery of the drillship, currently under construction at South Korea’s Samsung Heavy Industries, has been brought forward from the first quarter of 2019 to the third quarter of 2017.
Lastly Total has taken ENSCO DS-7 on a one well contract beginning August, which will see the drillship utilised until November 2017. Total has a further one well option available. The drillship has also been sitting idle in Tenerife earning a standby rate after its previous contract was cancelled.
Carl Trowell, President and CEO of Ensco, commented: “Our recent contract awards demonstrate our ability to win work for preservation stacked rigs and newbuilds ahead of the competition. We contracted ENSCO DS-4, a rig that was previously preservation stacked, for a two-year term and reactivated the rig on time and within our cost estimates. We also secured a one-year contract for ENSCO DS-10, our final newbuild drillship, which is among the most technologically advanced rigs in the global fleet.”
“We continue to see offshore drillers with track records of safe and efficient operations as well as financial strength win a disproportionate amount of new work and these contracts are examples of our recent success in capitalizing on this trend. Additionally, we believe that this new work positions us well for follow-on opportunities, benefiting future utilization for our rig fleet,” Trowell added.
