Turkey’s TPAO acquires two drillships from Eldorado Drilling

Turkey’s state oil company TPAO has purchased two drillships from Norway’s Eldorado Drilling, according to HaberDenizde.com, a Turkish website specializing in maritime issues.

The drillships, to be renamed Dorado and Draco, had been ordered by Seadrill a decade ago. But, according to reports, Seadrill could not take delivery when the rigs were completed due to the market downturn. 

Eldorado subsequently bought the rigs on the chance that the market would improve but reports indicate that the rigs have taken longer to find work than expected. So Eldorado sold them at a reported loss to TPAO for $245 million per drillship.

Both drillships will likely require another $80 million each to be made ready for service.

The pair will join the four other TPAO drillships, Fatih, Yavuz, Kanuni and Abdulhamid Han.

All four of TPAO’s existing drillships are working on the development drilling of the Sakarya field, which holds an estimated 540 billion cubic meters of gas.

Some reports indicate that the most likely destination for the two new rigs could be the appraisal of the recently discovered Göktepe field, which holds some 75 billion cubic meters of gas. 

But other reports say that the newly-acquired drillships will be deployed offshore Libya and off Mersin, southern Turkey.