New contracts surface for struggling Transocean

ZUG, Switzerland, April 22 (UPI) -- After reporting a string of lost contracts, rig company Transocean said it landed three new contracts for work largely in offshore Asia and Latin America.

The company said in its latest fleet status report it was awarded a three-year contract from India's state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp. for its Actinia rig for a dayrate of $101,100, or about $111 million for the full-term.

Its Deepwater Invictus will be deployed in the deep waters off the coast of Trinidad for Australian energy and mining giant BHP Billiton for an undisclosed term for a dayrate of $350,000. Finally, though none of the terms were disclosed, the company said it secured a six-month contract for its Dhirubhai Deepwater KG1 rig, which was last leased to Brazilian energy company Petrobras for a dayrate of $394,000.

In a letter to shareholders last month, the company said it moved through the weak energy market in 2015 better than expected, but expected significant challenges for the year ahead. Oil prices, the company said, are at historic lows and customers are tightening their purse strings, which meant it expected a limited number of new contracts to emerge in 2016.

This week it announced it was delaying the delivery of two ultra-deepwater drillships to 2020 in an agreement with a shipyard company in Singapore. In March, Transocean deferred the build of five new rigs until the first quarter of 2020 following a mutual agreement with rig builder Keppel Offshore & Marine, which secured a $1.1 billion contract from the rig company in 2013.

The rig company issues its quarterly results May 4.