Page 32: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (August 2013)

32 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News ? AUGUST 2013 Up until 2011, Sevan Drilling was part of Sevan Marine, which builds FPSOs. In 2011 Sevan Drilling was separated from Sevan Marine becoming an inde-pendent company. Sevan Drilling was established by Sevan Marine in 2006 for the purpose of building state-of-the-art, ultra deepwater drilling rigs based on the Sevan 650 design, commonly known as the bucket design. Later the same year, Sevan Marine completed a private placement for the purpose of Þ nancing, in part, its drilling business, and an order for Sevan Driller was placed with China Ocean Shipping (Group) Company (COSCO) in 2007.Sevan Drilling owns and operates two rigs of the cylindrical Sevan design. Both rigs have long-term charter con-tracts with Petrobras in Brazil for deep-water and ultra-deepwater plays includ-ing the pre-salt. In March 2013, Jon Willmann CFO and Deputy CEO for Sevan Drilling, gave a presentation at the exclusive Ho-tel Santa Teresa in the hills overlooking Rio de Janeiro. According to Willmann the company has a management and op-erating organization well positioned for further growth, sans the Þ nancial dif- Þ culties that af ß icted Sevan Marine in 2012.Willmann explained that its four high- end UDW rigs have a unique and cost effective design and have proven to be safe and efÞ cient for operations in ultra deep waters worldwide, including Bra-zil, West Africa and the U.S. Gulf of Mexico. ?Sevan Drilling has a perpetual license with Sevan Marine for use of the Sevan design for drilling purposes,? Willmann said. ?The company has approximately 481 employees based in Brazil, Norway and China.??This month, Sevan Drilling signed a three-year charter contract for operations in the US GoM with LLOG Bluewater Holding LLC. This rig, now named Se- van Louisiana, is currently under con-struction at the Cosco Quidong shipyard in China, and will be used for this con-tract,? said Willmann. The rig is scheduled for delivery in Q4 2013, with operations set to start in January 2014, with a total value of the charter contract in excess of $550m. Willmann also explained that due to this new contract, Sevan Drilling will estab-lish a Houston ofÞ ce to support its GoM operations, where it expects new charter contracts to be forthcoming.When asked about their relationship with Petrobras, he said ?Petrobras has been extremely supportive of both Se-van Marine and Sevan Drilling. Without Petrobras neither company would be in the market today. Petrobras betted on us, awarding contracts without any track re-cord, which is pretty bold and they have been extremely important in developing our company. That said, they do not op- erate as a charity and are a very profes-sional company. We have had to demon- Sevan Drilling?s Big DigOffshore Deepwater Brazil by Claudio PaschoaSevan Brasil arriving in Rio. (Photo: Sevan)Jon Willmann CFO of Sevan Drilling (Photo: Claudio Paschoa)MR #8 (26-33).indd 32MR #8 (26-33).indd 328/1/2013 11:01:50 AM8/1/2013 11:01:50 AM