Houston-headquartered offshore drilling contractor Rowan Companies is being linked to buying out Maersk Drilling, with Bloomberg suggesting a $4bn figure is being discussed. Maersk has 24 drilling rigs, including drillships, deepwater semi-submersibles and high-end jackup rigs. Neither party has commented on the report.
Last year A.P. Moller-Maersk announced plans to hive off all its energy-related divisions in a bid to focus on its container shipping, ports and logistics businesses. Thus far, France’s Total has come in for Maersk Oil and the Moller family has taken the group’s product tankers. If Rowan were to buy Maersk Drilling then the Danish conglomerate would be left with just its OSV division to sell.
