Seadrill Ltd. has entered into an agreement with Seadrill Partners to sell all of the ownership interests in the entities that own and operate the drillship West Vela to Seadrill Capricorn Holdings LLC, Seadrill Partners' 51%-owned subsidiary.
TheWest Vela is a sixth-generation, dynamically positioned drillship delivered from the Samsung shipyard to its current customer, BP, in November 2013. The West Vela is expected to carry out operations in the US Gulf of Mexico until the end of its contract in November 2020.
The implied purchase price of the acquisition is $900 million, less $433 million of debt outstanding under the existing facility financing theWest Vela. Based on Seadrill Partners' 51% ownership of Capricorn Holdings, its portion of the net purchase price after debt will be $238 million.
