Market reports indicate ENSCO, plc and Noble Corporation are close to signing long-term floating rig contracts in the Gulf of Mexico. Indications are that BP will charter newbuild drillship ENSCO DS-6 for a multiyear (believed to be five-to-seven years) contract starting in the first-half of 2012. The rig is scheduled for delivery from Samsung Shipyard in South Korea in December. Further rumors are that Noble will sign semi Noble Jim Day to a new multi-year deal with Shell starting in February 2012. The rig is currently working for the operator under a one-year deal that began in February. Shell also has contracts in the Gulf with Noble for semis Noble Danny Adkins, Noble Driller and the Noble Jim Thompson, and is due to pick up newbuild drillships Noble Bully I and Noble Globetrotter I later this year and in early 2012. Details of the new contracts will be reported once they are wrapped up. Meanwhile, BP and Petrobras have finalized a sixmonth sublet of newbuild drillship ENSCO DS-3, and the rig is now underway to Angola. The rig is scheduled to work there until mid-2012, after which it likely will return to the US Gulf. ENSCO’s contract with BP runs ...

Transocean Offshore, Inc. will mobilize one drillship out of and one drillship into the U.S. Gulf of Mexico in the next couple of months. First, Anadarko Petroleum Corp. will take the Discoverer Spirit to Sierra Leone, where it will drill two wells this year. The rig will begin a three year extension with Anadarko this month and has been working for the operator since late 2007. Meanwhile, Statoil will mobilize the Discoverer Americas back to the gulf from Egypt. Statoil moved the rig from the gulf last year as a result of the BOEMRE-imposed deepwater drilling moratorium. The rig’s contract runs to February 2014.

Diamond Offshore Drilling, Inc. is also expected to mobilize its semi Ocean Confidence back to the U.S. Gulf of Mexico late this year. The rig’s contract in the gulf with Murphy Exploration & Production Co. USA was suspended when the rig moved to the Republic of Congo in June 2010. The initial three-well term was to last for around 90 days before the semi was mobilized back, but the inability to obtain permit approvals have kept the rig overseas longer than originally planned. It currently is under contract in Angola with Cobalt International Energy, LP ...