Page 33: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (August 2013)

www.marinelink.com 33strate operationally that their trust was well placed.??The Sevan design has some competi-tive advantages. The motion characteris- tics are better than those of semi-subs or drillships. This better sea performance equates to longer uptime for the opera-tor. From an environmental perspective, the second factor is that our design has a moon pool, and a semi-sub does not. The risers and the drill strings are protected in this moon pool, whereas in a semi it is just open sea with no protection whatso-ever. Our units are also cheaper to build, so we do not need the peak rates to gen-erate returns.? Regarding prospects for the com-ing Þ ve years, Willmann said, ?Since November 2011, Seadrill acquired Se- van Marine?s stake in Sevan Drilling. Seadrill is the world?s most successful operator. There is however a high Þ nan-cial risk associated with Sevan Drilling coming from the fact that we have high leverage. The most important step going forward is to deleverage the company. We are aggressively amortizing the debt that we have today. In addition, rigs three and four have much lower Capex than the previous two and they are exposed to a market with much higher day rates than the Þ rst two. Assuming market rates for those two units, this will generate deleveraging for the company and will give us better Þ nancial ß exibility. If you measure risk by operational leverage: debt to EBITDA, we are aiming to move from a net ratio of more than eight down to three in 2015 when all four rigs are on contract, assuming that all rigs are at market rates. The key will be to get con- tracts for rigs 3 and 4. Rig 3 is already contracted, so we must concentrate on chartering rig 4. We then have options for a further two rigs from COSCO.?Sevan 650 design characteristics ? Large load carrying capacity ? Low roll and pitch motions? Simple structural layout ? simple to build? Lower cost to build and operate ? Offers a very stable drilling plat- form to meet growing need for low cost-efÞ cient operations Deepwater exploration drilling require-ments? The number of exploration and ap- praisal wells is expected to rise by 50% within 2020 ? Discovered resource volumes are becoming increasingly drilling in-tensive? Pre-salt drilling requires much more rig capacity per well ? Leading to a step increase in rig demand while number of wells are fairly ß at from 2008 to 2013 Sevan Drilling ? Fleet CapabilitiesUltra deepwater capabilites? Capable of drilling in water depths up to 10,000 feet.? Upgradable to 12,000 feet. Storage capacity? 2.5?3.0 times deck load capacity of a sixth generation semi-submersible unit.Environmental advantages ? Zero discharge capabilites. ? Double sides ? double bottom. ? Drilling through moon pool. (Continued on page 82)MR #8 (26-33).indd 33MR #8 (26-33).indd 338/1/2013 11:04:35 AM8/1/2013 11:04:35 AM