New Contracts Drive Maersk Drilling to Upgrade Financial Guidance for 2021

Danish offshore drilling company Maersk Drilling on Wednesday upgraded its financial guidance for the year 2021, on the back of improved contracting performance.

"Maersk Drilling continues to demonstrate strong commercial and operational performance. Over the past months, Maersk Drilling has secured several new drilling contracts for execution in 2021, and further, Maersk Drilling has successfully - and exceeding the original operational expectations - commenced operations of several new contracts, including reactivation and mobilization of four deepwater floaters," Maersk Drilling said.

As a result of its recent performance, Maersk Drilling upgraded its financial guidance for 2021 EBITDA before special items to $260-310 million, compared to the previous guidance of USD 225-275 million.

"The guidance range reflects ordinary operational uncertainties, including general rig performance, mobilization for and commencement of new contracts, and uncertainties regarding additional contracts for execution in 2021, including the exercise of options," Maersk Drilling said.

The guidance for 2021 capital expenditures remains unchanged at USD 120-140 million, the company added.

Earlier this week, on Monday, Maersk Drilling said it had won a contract with Ineos Oil & Gas UK  for its harsh-environment jack-up rig Maersk Resolve for drilling and hydraulic stimulation at the Breagh Alpha A11 well in block 42/13 of the UK North Sea.

On the same day, Maersk Drilling said it had agreed to sell two jack-up rigs to New Fortress Energy for 31 million.

New Fortress Energy will use the two jack-ups for non-drilling purposes as part of its planned Fast LNG project.

As for Maersk Drilling's floating rigs, the Maersk Venturer drillship in April started its multi-well campaign for Tullow in Ghana, and, in the same month, the company scored drillship deals with Shell in Malaysia, Petronas in Gabon, and semi-sub charters with Karoon in Brazil and CGX in Guyana.

Last week, Total extended the charter for the Maersk Developer offshore drilling rig in Suriname.