Some good news from the oil patch!
Addax Petroleum says it will pay $600,000 per day for a Transocean drillship, which it will use in the Gulf Of Guinea.
The Canadian oil company says it has signed a deal that will put the 60,080-gt Deepwater Pathfinder (built 1998) to work for at least 120 days beginning in the fourth quarter of this year.
The deal is worth a total of at least $72m.
The Deepwater Pathfinder
The Alberta, Canada-based company will use the drillship, which can operate in waters up to nearly 3,050 metres deep, to drill four wells in the Kina prospect. The site is in Block 4 of West Africa’s Joint Development Zone, an area where the Transocean unit has been busy.
“The Deepwater Pathfinder has proven that it is exceptionally capable and has drilled efficiently for other operators in the deepwater Gulf of Guinea,” Addax chief executive Jean Claude Gandur said in a statement.
The contract is the first in a series of contracts for the Deepwater Pathfinder that will see significantly higher day rates than its current charter.
Since July, the vessel has been earning roughly $395,000 per day in an 800-day contract with Shell off Nigeria.
It is scheduled to work for Lukoil off the Ivory Coast for two months at $630,000, followed by a five-year deal with Eni in the Gulf of Mexico at $650,000.
Recently relocated from Houston to Zug, Switzerland, New York-listed Transocean owns 36 offshore drilling units, including 10 drillships. It has another 10 ultra-deepwater drillships on order.