After Saudi Aramco already suspended deals with several rig owners, New York-listed offshore driller Valaris announced that its Saudi joint venture received a notice of suspension for one of the jackups contracted to the oil and gas player.
Valaris’ Saudi JV, ARO Drilling, has 19 contracted rigs to Saudi Aramco and it received a contract suspension for the Valaris 143 jackup. The contract for the rig was previously scheduled to end in December 2024.
Like with previous suspensions to other companies from Saudi Aramco, the notice is for a period of up to 12 months and ARO is in discussions with the Saudi giant to determine the effective date of the suspension.
Valaris leases the 2010-built jackup to ARO under a bareboat charter agreement and during the suspension period, ARO will have the right to terminate the drilling contract with Aramco which has been running since October 2018.
During the week, Saudi Aramco has been handing out suspension notices to offshore drillers left, right, and centre with a total of suspended rigs rising to 14.
First in line was Shelf Drilling. It received a notice of suspension of operations from what it described as “a Middle Eastern customer” for four of its rigs. It did not point to Saudi Aramco as the client, but that is their only Middle Eastern client with four or more Shelf jackups on hire.
On Thursday, three drillers received their notices of suspension. ADES stated that it mutually agreed with its “client in Saudi Arabia” to temporarily suspend operations on five of its 33 offshore jackups operating in the country for up to 12 months. It is easy to figure out that the client is indeed Saudi Aramco as all 33 jackups working in the country are contracted to it.
Next one up was Arabian Drilling which named the Saudi firm outright and said that it was currently in discussions with Aramco regarding contract suspensions relating to three of its jackups. The timing of the 12-month suspensions as well as the impacted rigs are yet to be confirmed.
The final one is Borr Drilling which received a 12-month suspension notice for its Arabia I jackup, set to begin in the second quarter. The fleet status report showed the jackup was contracted to Saudi Aramco although it was not specifically stated in the filing.
