Transocean has just added nearly $2billion to its near-$28billion backlog of work thanks to extensions of two ultra-deepwater rigs in the US Gulf of Mexico for Chevron.
The Discoverer Clear Leader, on a four-year contract at $566,000 per day until September 2014, has seen its charter extended four years at a dayrate of $590,000, according to VP marketing Terry Bonno.
The Discoverer Inspiration is working at $521,000 a day until March 2015 but switches to a dayrate of $585,000 for five years thereafter.
“They have a lot of work to do in the Gulf of Mexico, and it certainly makes sense for both of us (Chevron and Transocean),” Bonno said during a conference call to discuss the drilling company’s latest quarterly figures.
However, Bonno added a note of caution to a generally upbeat deepwater outlook, saying there may be idle time for rigs as shorter-term contracts ended and new ones entered the market.
“We will be rolling over some of these vessels, and there may be some time between contracts,” she said.
Meanwhile, there is growing speculation that Transocean’s new chief financial officer, Esa Ikaheimonen, will transform the tax status of the company by putting together a tax-advantaged “master limited partnership” similar to the one that he established at Seadrill during his time with the Norwegian company.
Ikaheimonen said there should be clarity on whether Transocean would move forward with an MLP within a couple months, while stressing that it was an open question as to whether there would be such a transition.
“We’re not going to do an MLP for the sake of doing an MLP,” CEO Steve Newman said during the conference call session.
Essentially, MLPs pay almost no corporate tax since they deliver nearly all profits to owners of the MLP units, which trade like stocks. They tend to be set up for long-lived assets with steady cash flows, such as pipelines and oil wells, and offshore rigs with longer contracts can fit the bill.
Examples of MLPs include Norwegian production ship fleet owner Teekay, and El Paso Pipeline Partners in the US.
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