Rig NEWS

Although Canada added one rig week on week, the U.S. dropped 17 rigs during the same timeframe, taking the total North America rig count down to 825, comprising 731 rigs in the U.S. and 94 rigs in Canada, Baker Hughes’ count outlined.

The plunge in oil prices will bottom out soon with a more significant pickup in subsequent quarters, some analysts forecast. Oil prices saw their third consecutive weekly decline last week, marking the longest losing run this year.

North America cut another seven rigs week on week, according to Baker Hughes’ latest rotary rig count, which was posted on May 5.

The past year has seen a fast inventory drawdown of abandoned and idle offshore rigs in Chinese yards, as drillers snap up units in response to a surge in demand.

The founder and president of Piper-Morgan Search and the CEO of Hazeltine Executive Search Partners talk to Rigzone.

.The Supreme Court ruled that an offshore oil rig worker who earned more than $200,000 annually — and who was classified by his company as a “bona fide executive” — is entitled to overtime pay for having worked more than 40 hours per week.

Two former senior managers of Singapore’s Keppel Offshore & Marine’s rig-building subsidiary Keppel Fels have escaped jail, instead being hit with fines after pleading guilty to historic corruption charges relating to overseas trips paid for by an official with steel products trading company Corus South East Asia to advance the latter’s business interests.

A jack-up rig sporting legs more than 200 m in height has become the largest ever vessel to visit Port of Aberdeen. The Noble Innovator offshore rig arrived at the new £400 million ($483.91 million) Aberdeen South Harbour for a 60 - 90 day period of maintenance by Noble Corporation.

HOUSTON (Bloomberg) - The Eagle Ford shale in South Texas, long overlooked compared to its larger cousin the Permian basin, saw its biggest one-week jump in drilling activity in more than two years as explorers look for growth beyond the world’s biggest shale patch. The number of rigs drilling for crude in the Eagle Ford rose by 5 to 43 this week, according to Baker Hughes Co. data released Friday. It’s the biggest weekly expansion for explorers in the region since December 2019. Even gas-rich basins got in on the crude-drilling growth, adding the most oil rigs in at least half a decade with two more going to work in Louisiana’s Haynesville and one starting up in the Marcellus.

Mærsk Giant has been sold to the LOTOS Petrobaltic Group. Its new owners have decided to use the rig for drilling in the Baltic Sea, for jobs involving the LOTOS Petrobaltic Group and other contracting parties. CEO of Maersk Drilling said, “After reviewing different options, we believe that a sale of Giant creates the highest shareholder value". And this sale is a part of the company's fleet optimization process.

London-based Seadrill has reported an increase in losses for the start of 2019. Its pre-tax losses for the first quarter have settled at £220.4million. The company is witnessing such loss because almost half of its 51 offshore rigs were idle during the quarter. Revenue of the company has fallen to £239.4million from £288.6m in Q1 last year.

Independent Oil and Gas plans to bring Maersk Drilling UK for its Harvey appraisal well project. It has signed a letter of intent for the same. The agreement is for the Maersk Resilient jack-up rig. IOG got the Harvey East licence in the 30th Licence Round after which it holds 100% of the Harvey license. Also, the company has almost closed the contract with Halliburton for the offshore drilling of this well.

Rowan Companies plc’s jack-up rig, Rowan Norway has been awarded a contract by ConocoPhillips Skandinavia AS (COPSAS) in Norway. Rowan Norway is an N-Class ultra-harsh environment jack-up rig that will be deployed for an estimated duration of seven months. The contract award is subject to partner approval. According to the initial contract term, COPSAS has two options, an estimated duration of five months and nine months.

35-year old semi-submersible drilling platform, Olinda Star was the only rig to be hit by Cyclone Phethai among the six rigs working in the Kakinada, India. After this accident, the rig-hiring rules of India’s ONGC are being questioned which were amended in 2014. In order to gain benefit from global rig oversupply, the altered rules focused more on the commercial aspects than on safety.

Equinor has signed a framework agreement with Norway Rowan. The Rowan Stavanger jack-up rig has won a £17.7million contract for drilling work at Equinor’s Gurdrun field. Under the scope of the contract, the rig will drill two wells for five months. It has five extension options that are not included in the initial contract value. The framework agreement gives the operator exclusive rights to the rig.

Subsea installation monitoring project for Subsea 7 has been completed by the subsea equipment specialist, Ashtead Technology. This project was in support of Utgard development of Equinor. i-Tech awarded this contract to Ashtead on behalf of Subsea 7. Deflection Monitoring System (DMS) was used for capturing important data that can assist in the installation of subsea template safely.

Canada’s largest drilling contractor, Precision Drilling Corp. has bagged a 5-year take-or-pay contract of newbuild ST-3000 drilling rig in Kuwait whose capital cost is estimated to be around $60 million. Through free cash flow generation, Precision is looking to reduce its debt in 2018. Demands for Precision’s rigs have risen considerably in the U.S.