This week, worldwide offshore rig utilization rose to 83.9%, a rather siginficant jump caused by five idle rigs going on contract in the last week.

In the previous edition of the Weekly Offshore Rig Review, we looked at the companies that are contracting the largest competitive jackup fleets in the world. Ths week, we will continue our examination of leading operators by looking at the companies that are contracting the largest numbers of semisubmersibles and drillships. Looking at this information over the past year and into the future helps to paint a picture of which operators have been and will be the most active.

The table below outlines the leading operators around the globe that currently have the largest fleet of competitive semisubmersible rigs and drillships under contract. In addition, each company's overall share of the competitive floating rig fleet is shown.

At the top of the list of top floating rig operators is Petrobras, which has the largest fleet by a wide margin. Thanks to Petrobras, state-controlled companies have a sizable share of the semisub and drillship fleet, with the top 6 state companies operating about 19% of the worldwide competitive floating rig fleet. However, this share is much smaller than among the jackup fleet, which had almost 1/3 of the fleet working for state companies.

Looking at the current picture of rig contracts as of today is useful, but a more comprehensive picture can be gained by looking back over a longer period of time. The table below presents the number of competitive floating rigs and days contracted throughout 2006 for the top operators of these rigs that had at least 1,000 rig days contracted during 2006.

This look at the top floating rig operators continues to show the dominance of Petrobras. The company hired more rigs in 2006 than any other company, as well as contracting about 67% more rig days than the next largest floating rig operator. At the same time, Petrobras has paid some of the lowest day rates of any floating rig operator, with only Pemex paying less per rig day.

The table below presents the operators that have the longest average contract lengths for competitive semisub and drillship contracts that have occured since the start of 2006, including ongoing contracts. Only companies that have had at least four competitive floating rigs contracted since January 2006 are included, and only those companies with average contract lengths greater than the worldwide average length are shown.

While all of the operators shown in the table above have longer than average semisub and drillship contract lengths, Pemex and Petrobras stand out from the rest. These two state-owned, Latin American operators both have average contract lengths that surpass all of the other operators by a very large margin. In fact, Pemex contracts are 3.8 times longer than the average contract length, and Petrobras contracts are 2.5 times longer than the average.

Beyond looking at the past and current contracts, we can also look forward to the floating rig contracts that will be ongoing during the next two years. This is a good guide to which operators have the most work planned and have made the most efforts to ensure access to deewpater rig time between now and early 2009. The table below provides the list of operators that have already contracted the most competitive semisub and drillship days for the next two years (includes firm contracts, options, and LOIs).

Not surprisingly, Petrobras tops this list as well. The company has over 15,000 deepwater rig days contracted for the next two years, which is almost 50% more than Shell in second place. Another interesting point is that Petrobras will continue to pay significantly lower day rates than other operators over the next two years. For the other ten operators listed above, the average floating rig day rate to be paid over the next two years is $304,593. This is more than 75% higher than the average day rates to be paid by Petrobras.

For More Information on the Offshore Rig Fleet:
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