Atwood Oceanics has delayed the delivery of two drillships under construction at Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering by two years.
The Atwood Admiral and Atwood Archer, will now be delivered in September 2019 and June 2020 respectively. Atwood will make a series of payments as per the current schedule and DSME will extend all remaining milestone payments. This includes $83.9 million for the Atwood Admiral and $165.0 million for the Atwood Archer being delayed through to December 2022.
Rob Saltiel, president and CEO of Atwood, commented, “The restructuring of payment and delivery schedules for the Atwood Admiral and Atwood Archer is an important step in our capital structure management, enhancing liquidity and improving capital commitment timing. The two-year extensions on the delivery dates greatly improve our confidence that we will secure suitable drilling services contracts on both rigs prior to taking delivery. We now have the opportunity to earn revenues on these rigs that will cover some or all of the final payments to the shipyard.”
Atwood will retain the option to take earlier delivery of each drillship, subject to providing 45 days notice, without affecting the final milestone payment dates.
