Page 20: of Offshore Engineer Magazine (Mar/Apr 2025)

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MARKETS RIGS

Image courtesy Well-Safe Solutions

Rig Retirements Set to

Rise as Utilization Falls to

Lowest Level Since 2021

By Teresa Wilkie, Director of RigLogix, Westwood Global Energy Group s has historically been the case, when utilisa- softness began creeping in, especially in the UK North Sea tion is high and the availability of marketed semisub market, where four of the seven assets were retired. rigs is tight, the probability of stacked rigs Year to date, nine rigs have been confrmed for removal being reactivated is more likely. This explains from the active feet. These consist of four jackups – owned

A why attrition began to fall in 2021 and shrunk to near by Shelf Drilling, White Fleet Drilling and Well Services nought by 2023, when utilisation was the highest it has Petroleum – and three 8500-series semisubs owned by Va- been in the past decade. However, during the sustained laris, all of which were under 15 years old. Additionally, downturn which ran from 2014 through to 2018, before Noble confrmed the disposal of two modern S12000-de- a slight recovery in 2019 (until Covid-19 hit in 2020), the sign, ultra-deepwater drillships that it inherited during its number of rigs being retired or sold for purposes outside of acquisition of Pacifc Drilling – one of which never drilled the active drilling market was particularly high – averaging a single well and was just 10 years old. around 43 rigs per year over the 2014-2020 period. The average age of assets retired from the feet has con-

Last year, attrition started to pick up again as market tinued to reduce for foating rigs, with drillships reducing 20 OFFSHORE ENGINEER OEDIGITAL.COM