Atwood Oceanics, an offshore drilling contractor, has agreed with Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) to delay the company’s requirement to take delivery of two newbuild ultra-deepwater drillships.
According to the drilling contractor, delivery dates for Atwood Admiral and Atwood Archer have been pushed to September 30, 2017 and June 30, 2018, respectively.
Atwood previously delayed these two drillships in April 2015 pushing the delivery dates from previously planned September 2015 to September 2016 for the Atwood Admiral, and from June 2016 to June 2017 for the Atwood Archer.
In consideration of the agreement, Atwood says it will make payments of $50 million for each drillship on December 31, 2015, and DSME will extend all remaining milestone payments, $93.9 million for the Admiral and $305 million for the Archer, until their respective delivery dates.
The drilling contractor says it retains the option to take earlier delivery of each vessel, subject to a forty-five day notice period to DSME.
This is yet another agreement of this kind for DSME as another drilling contractor, Transocean , agreed with the yard in October to postpone deliveries of its two drillships by a year each.
Offshore Energy Today Staff