Noble ties up two drillships

Noble Corp has secured three-year charters for two deepwater drillships it has under construction at Hyundai Heavy Industries.
The Noble Sam Croft and the Noble Tom Madden have been fixed to US-listed Plains Exploration & Production Co. Revenues to be generated over the three-year terms are expected to total about $693m per rig, representing in excess of $1.3 billion in total.
The drillships, which are being built on a fixed price basis, are expected to be utilized for operations primarily in the US Gulf of Mexico. The Noble Sam Croft is due to be delivered by mid 2014, followed by the Noble Tom Madden in second half of 2014.
With these contracts all four of Noble’s ultra-deepwater drillships under construction at Hyundai are now under contract. “With the addition of these units to our US Gulf of Mexico fleet, Noble will have one of the most modern and capable fleets in the region,” said chief executive David Williams. “At the same time, these contracts provide us with significant additional backlog, while expanding and diversifying our customer base.”
All four Noble drillships building at Hyundai are based on a Hyundai Gusto P10,000 hull design, capable of operations in up to 12,000 feet of water and offering a variable deck load of 20,000t.
Noble has a fleet of 79 offshore drilling units including five ultra-deepwater drillships and six high-spec jack-up drilling rigs under construction.