Page 16: of Offshore Engineer Magazine (Mar/Apr 2025)

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MARKETS DRILLSHIPS © nikkytok / Adobe Stock

Te Future of Long-Idle Drillships:

Cold-Stacked or Dead-Stacked?

Noble Corporation’s recent decision to sell the Pacifc Meltem and Pacifc

Scirocco for non-drilling purposes highlights a key issue in the drillship market:

What happens to cold-stacked rigs that are unlikely to return to work? With the foater market showing signs of weakness and contract opportunities becoming scarcer, reactivating these units is proving even more challenging.

By Sofa Forestieri, Senior Analyst at Esgian sgian Rig Values has adjusted its valuations since With no confrmed contracts for several rigs rolling off early 2025 to refect these conditions, reducing contract, owners have little incentive to reactivate cold- 6th generation drillship values by approximately stacked assets, especially as doing so would only introduce 12%, 7th generation values by approximately more competition and pressure on already softening day-

E 6.5%, and cold-stacked rig values by a further 10% in Feb- rates. Selling these rigs for drilling purposes would only ruary leading to a 24% reduction year to date for the latter. introduce further competition, potentially bidding against

While some of these could technically be reactivated, the their own feet in an already oversupplied market. How- high costs and uncertain contract prospects make recycling ever, some alternatives to scrapping are emerging. or conversion a more viable option for older, long-idle rigs. Market rumours suggest that Turkish Petroleum (TP)

Transocean, which holds the largest pool of cold-stacked is looking to acquire up to four drillships. While spe- drillships, may eventually have to make tough decisions on cifc units have not been confrmed, this strategy could rigs such as Discoverer Clear Leader and Discoverer Amer- provide an attractive solution for owners seeking to sell icas, which have been stacked for over seven years. Valaris stacked rigs at substantially higher prices than scrapping,

DS-11, stacked since 2022, is another possible recycling/ without creating additional competition. Since 2018, 25 conversion candidate. Meanwhile, the demand outlook drillships have exited the market, with 21 scrapped and 4 over the next 24 months remains challenging, with con- sold for conversion. tracted competitive utilization projected to decline from The most recent drillship taken out of the drilling feet 90% to 73% by December 2025. was Transocean’s 6 th generation Ocean Rig Olympia, 16 OFFSHORE ENGINEER OEDIGITAL.COM