Transocean Wins $62 Million Offshore Drilling Contract from Shell Norway

en.Wedoany.com Reported - On October 9, Switzerland-based offshore drilling contractor Transocean announced that its Transocean Norge semi-submersible drilling rig has been awarded a two-well drilling contract by Shell Norway, with an estimated contract period of approximately 120 days and a firm contract backlog of approximately $62 million, excluding additional service revenue. The contract also includes an option for one additional well, which is planned to be executed following the rig's completion of previously awarded operations in Norwegian waters.

The Transocean Norge is a sixth-generation harsh-environment semi-submersible drilling rig, built to the Moss Maritime CS60 design by Singapore's Jurong Shipyard and placed into service in 2019. The rig has a hull approximately 122.6 meters long and 94.2 meters wide, equipped with dynamic positioning and mooring systems, enabling it to conduct oil and gas well drilling under harsh sea conditions on the Norwegian Continental Shelf.

The rig had previously secured a five-well drilling contract from UK-based Harbour Energy in Norwegian waters, with three single-well options, and the related orders were included in Transocean's fleet contract arrangements announced in August 2026. The new Shell order will follow the previously confirmed drilling schedule, with the specific commencement date of operations not yet announced.

Transocean also confirmed during the same period that Equinor, the Norwegian state-owned energy company, granted final approval in late September for the previously announced utilization agreements for three harsh-environment semi-submersible drilling rigs. The agreements cover the Transocean Enabler, Transocean Encourage, and Transocean Endurance, with a contract value of approximately $1 billion, and have now been formally included in the firm contract backlog.

The three rigs have a combined contract workload of seven rig years. Among them, the Transocean Enabler is scheduled to commence a three-year operation in the first quarter of 2028, the Transocean Encourage will follow with a two-year operation in the same period, and the Transocean Endurance is scheduled to begin a two-year operation in the second quarter of 2027, with the latter to be mobilized to Norway after completing its existing operations in Australia.