Valaris adds five more deals worth $150m to backlog

Offshore drilling company Valaris has raked in new contracts for three of its rigs worth around $150m.

Valaris said that it won two deals for one of its semi-submersibles while the remaining three deals were for two jack-up drilling rigs. The company received a two-well contract with Anadarko Petroleum, a wholly owned subsidiary of Occidental, for the Valaris DPS-5 semisub. The contract is expected to begin in July 2023 in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico and has a minimum duration of 60 days. The total contract value is approximately $22 million.

According to the most recent fleet status report, the rig will complete work for Eni during July offshore Mexico. It started work for the Italian major in January this year on a $313,500 per day deal with an additional $1.2m mobilization fee.

The Valaris DPS-5 won one more contract – a nine-wells plug and abandonment campaign with Apache in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico. The contract is expected to begin in September 2023 right after the deal with Anadarko and has a minimum duration of 110 days.

The Valaris 107 jack-up also bagged a brace of deals. It won a deal which will last 180 days at the least with an undisclosed operator offshore Australia. The rig will start work in the first quarter of 2024 on a $150,000 operating day rate. The second contract is for one year with another unnamed Australian company. The contract is set to start in October 2024.

The rig is already offshore Australia working for a company which remained anonymous in Valaris’ fleet status report. The work will be wrapped up in August but will be followed by a contract with Beach Energy offshore New Zealand until December 2023. The Beach Energy deal is supposed to bring in $26m for the company.

The last contract awarded to Valaris was for the Valaris 247 jack-up. It is a two-well deal with a “major Australian operator” which is expected to begin in early to mid-2024. It has an estimated duration of 100 days. The company stated that the operating day rate was $180,000 and that it would receive a mobilization and demobilization fee that covers operating costs while the rig is in transit.

The Valaris 247 is currently busy offshore the UK. It started work with Perenco in March and it is expected to finish its work in September. Perenco does have one option with an estimated duration of 60 days. It is worth noting that contract backlog excludes lump sum payments such as mobilization fees and capital reimbursements.

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