The Brazilian state-owned oil company has now axed its charter of the Sevan Driller, having suspended the contract last December as part of “commercial negotiations” for both units, the Oslo-listed contractor said in a statement.
Sevan has also agreed to cut the dayrate for the second rig, Sevan Brasil, to $250,000 in order to keep the rig employed with Petrobras and prevent a termination of both contracts, thereby avoiding a protracted legal battle between the parties, it stated.
The latter rig, which was previously working for a dayrate of $383,000, has a six-year contract due to expire in July 2018 while the now-terminated deal for the Sevan Driller – effective from last December – had been due to end in June this year.
Sevan said it had been able to preserve $220 million of backlog through the revised charter for Sevan Brasil, while enabling it to find alternative work for Sevan Driller that has now been fixed on a short-term charter with Shell off Brazil.
The contractor, which is majority owned by John Fredriksen’s Seadrill, confirmed the Sevan Driller had been taken by the Anglo-Dutch supermajor on a 60-day well intervention contract, with two 30-day options, due to start in the second quarter.
As a result, Sevan’s total revenue backlog is now estimated at $509 million, having recently secured an extension of a contract at a lower dayrate with LLOG Bluewater for its rig Sevan Louisiana working in the US Gulf of Mexico.
A fourth newbuild cylindrical unit, Sevan Developer, remains at Cosco Shipyard in China after Sevan last year exercised an initial option to defer delivery until April 2016.
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