Kuala Lumpur: In a deal worth billions of dollars Malaysia’s SapuraKencana Petroleum, the nation's biggest oil and gas services company, has agreed to buy John Fredriksen’s Seadrill tender-rig operations. SapuraKencana will fork out $2.9bn for the vessels, albeit some of the payment – $350m – will be in the form of new SapuraKencana shares, doubling Seadrill’s stake in the company to 13%.
“Seadrill believes in the potential of SapuraKencana’s expansion,” Fredriksen, Seadrill’s chairman said in the statement. “Net proceeds from the transaction will be redeployed as equity to aggressively grow our deep-water fleet and also open up for significant new investment in the jack-up sector.”
SapuraKencana will operate a total 16 existing tender-rigs after the deal, with five more under construction.
“After a period of transformation and consolidation, I’m truly excited about entering the next phase of growth with Seadrill to together create an undisputed Asian offshore services champion,” Shahril Shamsuddin, SapuraKencana’s ceo, said in a statement. [06/11/12]
