TRANSOCEAN has sent its ultra-deepwater drill-ship Discoverer Americas to work offshore Egypt.
The vessel remains under contract with Statoil but, because of the deepwater drilling moratorium in the US Gulf of Mexico, planned operations have been frustrated.
So the Norwegian company has decided to drill an Egyptian concession for five months instead.
The dayrate for the vessel will be some $4,000 more to operate the Discoverer Americas off Egypt than in the US Gulf. Statoil will pay $486,000 per day.
The plan is that Discoverer Americas will return to the US Gulf in March next year to resume the original Statoil programme, which is scheduled to run until late 2013.
This is the second rig that Transocean has decided to pull out of the US Gulf in recent weeks because of the drilling ban brought about by the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
The Marianas semi-submersible is transferring to West Africa, where it will drill for Italian energy giant Eni.