Page 18: of Offshore Engineer Magazine (Mar/Apr 2025)

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MARKETS DRILLSHIPS

Transocean’s Cold-Stacked Drillships’ Valuation

Valaris faces a different challenge with its 3 cold-stacked drillships. Two of them, newbuilds Valaris DS-13 and Va- laris DS-14, were acquired for an aggregate price of $337 million and stacked shortly after. Despite being cold- stacked for nearly a year and a half, Valaris has actively marketed these rigs, indicating that they have been main- tained in good condition.

As a result, Esgian estimates that reactivation would cost approximately $40 to $50 million, and would take about 6 months to complete. Valaris DS-11, on the other hand, was delivered in 2013 and has been stacked for a little over two years.

It could be a potential candidate for recycling or conver- sion and is currently valued between $171 and $189 mil- lion. This valuation considers the rigs’ cold-stacked status, meaning that selling them for non-drilling purposes, such as conversion or recycling, would result in materially lower sales prices.

Valaris’ Cold-Stacked drillships’ Valuation

With demand softening and utilization expected to de- cline, what does this mean for the viability of long-term cold-stacked rigs? The current competitive drillship feet totals 80 rigs. Competitive contracted utilization* is 89%, projected to average around 86% by the end of the second quarter of this year, and to drop to 71% by December, with 14 drillships rolling off contract by year-end and no confrmed future contracts so far.

*Competitive contracted utilization is the number of rigs contracted (current and future) divided by the com- petitive feet.

Drillship White-Space to Increase by

December 2025

With demand now being pushed into late 2026 and beyond in key deepwater regions such as the US GOM,

South America, West Africa, and Southeast Asia, the ex- isting feet is already facing increasing competition for contracts. This tightening market dynamic suggests that bringing additional capacity online through the reactiva- tion of cold-stacked rigs is not a viable solution in the short term.

18 OFFSHORE ENGINEER OEDIGITAL.COM