Offshore rig contractor Transocean took a $21million hit from the grounding and salvage of one of its vessels off the Isle of Lewis in the third quarter.
The company chalked up revenues to $903million during the three months, down 44% year-on-year. Its net income fell 26% to $244million.
Transocean said it reduced its operating and maintenance expenditure by almost $100million during the quarter thanks to “lower costs associated with stacked rigs and rig retirements, and lower personnel expense related to the company’s continuing cost management initiatives”.
“These decreases were partly offset by $21million related to the grounding, salvage and preparation for recycling of the Transocean Winner”, the company said.
The semi-submersible rig arrived at its final destination in Turkey earlier this week. It will now be scrapped.
Transocean president and chief executive Jeremy Thigpen said: “I am extremely pleased with the quarterly results. Due to our unwavering commitment to maximize uptime for our customers, and the outstanding performance of our crews and shore based personnel, we delivered revenue efficiency of 100%.
“Of note, we produced this exceptional result, while continuing to realize cost savings across the organization, which enabled us to improve our quarterly Adjusted Normalized EBITDA margin to 51%.”
Executive vice president and chief financial officer Mark Mey said: “In October, we successfully executed on a $600million bond secured by the newbuild drillship Deepwater Thalassa.
“This transaction, coupled with our previous debt offering this year, further extends our liquidity runway and improves our strategic flexibility as the market recovers.”
Transocean operates a fleet of 57 mobile offshore drilling units. It has five ultra-deepwater drillships and five high-specification jack-ups under construction or under contract to be constructed.