Transocean NEWS

Climate group, Greenpeace has ended a 12-day standstill with oil supermajor BP. Greenpeace had forced BP-contracted Transocean drilling rig to cancel on its journey to Vorlich field several times over the past week. With the campaigners blocking the track with an icebreaker ship and two inflatable launches, BP suffered a loss of over £1.5 million.

Protests from Greenpeace activists continue at Transocean’s drilling rig on Friday to prevent it from heading to a BP oilfield in the UK North Sea. A statement released by Greenpeace read how police had removed and arrested two Greenpeace activists on Thursday night. Friday saw another couple of Greenpeace activists climbing up a leg of the rig. BP has said that it is coordinating with Transocean and Scottish police.

Transocean has entered into an agreement with its customer, Equinor, wherein the company will license and install Automated Drilling Control (ADC). ADC will be installed on the four rigs which are currently working in Norway and the fifth rig which is expected to commence its operations soon in the Norweigan sea. CEO commented, "The ADC upgrades advance our automation efforts and further enhance our industry-leading fleet of semi-submersibles".

Transocean has entered into an agreement with supermajor, Chevron for $830m, to provide drilling services through an ultra-deepwater drillship, in the Gulf of Mexico. The under-construction ultra-deepwater drillship is expected to start operations in 2021. A press release from Transocean detailed the features of the drillship such as dual 20,000 psi blowout preventers, net hook-load capacity of three million pounds, among other specifications.

BASF-owned Wintershall has received green light to go ahead with drilling operations at the Marisko Prospect in the Norwegian Sea. Wintershall will deploy Transocean Spitsbergen rig for carrying out the drilling process on the prospect. Operations at the prospect are expected to last 61 days. If a discovery is made, operations will continue for 93 days. Repsol, OMV and Equinor are stake holders of Marisko prospect where Wintershall is the operator.

Norwegian oil giant, Equinor has hired Transocean Norge for drilling six wells on the Norwegian continental shelf (NCS). The contract was signed in an estimated value of $89 million. Drilling services such as slop treatment and cutting handling, and part of the mobilization fee are the services included in the contract. Transocean Norge will initiate drilling start-up in the Tordis, Visund, Bauge and Snorre licenses by the summer of 2019.

Transocean announced that it will acquire Cyprus’ drilling contractor, Ocean Rig in a £2.1 billion deal. It informed that the deal will be a “combination of cash on hand and fully committed financing provided by Citi”. After the completion of this procurement, shareholders of Transocean and Ocean rig will own 79% and 21% in the shared company. Currently, Ocean Rig owns 2 harsh environment semisubmersibles and 9 high-specification ultra-deepwater drillships.

Canada-based Husky Energy has granted a one-year contract extension to Transocean’s Henry Goodrich drilling rig. The semi-submersible rig is currently deployed in the Atlantic Ocean offshore Canada. The assessed contract backlog is approximately $100 million, implying that the dayrate is around $274.000. The extended will keep the rig busy until late 2019.

Leading offshore drilling service provider, Transocean yesterday released the fleet status report for this quarter, which contains the current status, and contract information of the drilling rigs of the firm. The company’s present backlog according to the report is $11.7 billion. The four floaters, Deepwater Discovery, Deepwater Frontier, Deepwater Millennium and Songa Trym have been abdicated by the company in an environment-friendly manner.

Conoco Phillips and Transocean have secured 13-well UK North Sea contract, bringing the estimated value of Transocean’s contract backlog to around £56.6million. The work will start in March 2019 and has to last for approximately 19 months and includes a one-well option also. Transocean 712, which is a mid-water semisubmersible rig, will be used for the contract.