Video: How mergers are reshaping the offshore drilling market
The offshore drilling rig contractor market (and the broader offshore energy services sector) has undergone significant consolidation over the past decade. This is driven by the need for scale, cost efficiencies, fleet high-grading (focusing resources on modern, high-specification rigs while retiring or divesting older units), and capital discipline after the prolonged post-2014 downturn.
These moves have reduced the number of independent players, concentrated market share among top contractors (now controlling a large share of the global fleet and an even higher proportion of premium/working rigs), and accelerated rig attrition through scrapping or cold-stacking of older units.
Amongst the drilling rig contractors, the ongoing wave of mergers is creating a more disciplined, efficient industry with two to three dominant independents in premium segments alongside strong national players.
About the Author
Bruce Beaubouef
Senior Lead Reporter / Managing Editor
Bruce Beaubouef is Managing Editor for Offshore magazine. In that capacity, he plans and oversees content for the magazine; writes features on technologies and trends for the magazine; writes news updates for the website; creates and moderates topical webinars; and creates videos that focus on offshore oil and gas and renewable energies. Beaubouef has been in the oil and gas trade media for 25 years, starting out as Editor of Hart’s Pipeline Digest in 1998. From there, he went on to serve as Associate Editor for Pipe Line and Gas Industry for Gulf Publishing for four years before rejoining Hart Publications as Editor of PipeLine and Gas Technology in 2003. He joined Offshore magazine as Managing Editor in 2010, at that time owned by PennWell Corp. Beaubouef earned his Ph.D. at the University of Houston in 1997, and his dissertation was published in book form by Texas A&M University Press in September 2007 as The Strategic Petroleum Reserve: U.S. Energy Security and Oil Politics, 1975-2005.