Offshore Drilling Market to Stay Tight
Major oil companies “have their backs against the wall” when it comes to getting offshore drilling contracts, according to Dahlman Rose & Co. managing director Omar Nokta.
Nokta says Brazil’s national oil company, Petrobras, has aggressively locked up a significant amount of rig capacity. As a result, dayrates have been pushed to record levels.
“We expect the few deepwater rigs available during the next three years will see significant enquiry and lead to higher dayrates and contract durations,” said Nokta. “We are raising our dayrate assumptions for ultra deepwater floaters (7,500-feet drilling capability or more) to $570,000/day, harsh environment ultra deepwater floaters to $600,000/day and standard 5,000-feet deepwater floaters to $475,000/day. These dayrates are $50,000/day higher than our prior forecasts.”
Nokta thinks Transocean Inc. could benefit most from the tight deepwater market since it controls seven of 16 rigs available through the end of 2010.
