Maersk Drilling Mulls Listing in Recovering Market

Monday, February 25, 2019

Drilling rig contractor Maersk Drilling, which will soon list on the Copenhagen stock exchange, said the offshore drilling market is improving as oil firms generate more cash and look to boost reserves.

A fall in oil prices in 2014 prompted a severe downturn in the industry as oil companies cancelled or postponed exploration plans, reducing demand for offshore drilling rigs.

"What drives our faith in a market recovery is to a high degree the higher activity we see from the oil companies," chief executive Jorn Madsen told Reuters.

He referred to an increase in utility rates and the number of tenders, longer contracts and more requests from companies looking for rigs to drill for oil and gas.

His comments echoed remarks made by Transocean's chief executive Jeremy Thigpen, who earlier this month said that 2018 marked the beginning of a recovery.

But despite signs of a nascent improvement, a sharp fall in the oil price in the last quarter of 2018 triggered new doubts about the pace of the offshore drilling market's recovery.

Borr Drilling, which listed its shares on the Oslo main exchange in Aug. 2017 in anticipation of a market recovery, is trading around a fifth lower than its listing price

Danish conglomerate A.P. Moller-Maersk is spinning off Maersk Drilling, which will be renamed as The Drilling Company of 1972 and start trading in Copenhagen on April 4.

Shares in the world's largest offshore drilling firm Transocean are down around 40 percent since mid-October when oil prices hit a four-year high of over $86 a barrel.

The price of Brent crude is down around 20 percent from since then, trading at $67.1 per barrel on Monday.

Reporting by Stine Jacobsen

Categories: Offshore Finance Energy Offshore Energy Drilling

Related Stories

MODEC Wins ExxonMobil Guyana’s Hammerhead FPSO Contract

India Stretches Bids Deadline for 13 Offshore Deep-Sea Mineral Blocks

Sapura Energy Nets $22.6M in Offshore Support Vessel Contracts

CNOOC Puts Into Production New Oil Field in South China Sea

Woodside to Shed Some Trinidad and Tobago Assets for $206M

Argentina YPF to Shed Offshore Exploration Projects

Valeura Wraps Up Infill Drilling Campaign in Gulf of Thailand

European LNG Imports Up with Asian Influx

US Operator Finds Oil Offshore Vietnam

ADES’ Fourth Suspended Jack-Up Rig Gets Work Offshore Thailand

Current News

Chuditch Gas Field Up for Summer Drilling Ops as Sunda Reshapes Ownership Structure

EnQuest Bags Two Production Sharing Contracts off Indonesia

Hanwha Drilling’s Tidal Action Drillship En Route to Petrobras’ Roncador Field

China's ENN, Zhenhua Oil Ink LNG Supply Deals with ADNOC

MODEC Wins ExxonMobil Guyana’s Hammerhead FPSO Contract

India Stretches Bids Deadline for 13 Offshore Deep-Sea Mineral Blocks

Indonesia Awards Oil and Gas Blocks to Boost Reserves

Sapura Energy Nets $22.6M in Offshore Support Vessel Contracts

CNOOC Puts Into Production New Oil Field in South China Sea

Sunda Energy Starts Environmental Consultation for Chuditch-2 Well Drilling Plans

Subscribe for AOG Digital E‑News

AOG Digital E-News is the subsea industry's largest circulation and most authoritative ENews Service, delivered to your Email three times per week

https://accounts.newwavemedia.com