17OCT2018 - NEWS - Offshore drilling companies expects market recovery by 2020

Battered oil and gas drilling companies are finally seeing piecemeal signs that the prices they charge for offshore rigs are bottoming out with Brent crude selling for more than $80 a barrel and some are forecasting a full turn in the market by 2020. At the depths of a global slide that took oil below $27 a barrel in early 2016, daily rates for leasing the most sophisticated floating drilling rigs had fallen to just $180,000 from $500,000 a day, as producer returns from North Sea, Latin America and Canadian drilling evaporated. Transocean Ltd, a top supplier of drilling vessels, said last month that rates for its new high-spec vessels in the North Sea are now fetching $300,000 a day. Drillers have been predicting an upturn for more than a year only to disappoint but debt ratings firm Moody’s Investors Services said last month that it believed 2018 could mark the low point for industry earnings.

Published by Editor - www.Livebunkers.com at 17-Oct-2018 05:15:40 [UTC] , contact editor at editor@livebunkers.com