Transocean Revives Rigs, Reliance Heads to US Gulf

Transocean Ltd, the world's largest rig contractor, said that it had put a few previously idle rigs back to work and another was headed from India to the Gulf of Mexico for more than year. Separately, Transocean has plugged a leak in its Marianas deepwater unit off Ghana, which was taking on water a week ago, and the company is now pumping out water in preparation to tow it for repairs, a spokesman said.

Transocean said in its fleet status report that Reliance Industries Ltd would move its Discoverer India ultra-deepwater rig to the Gulf of Mexico from next month, before it returns to India in March 2013. Also in India, state-run explorer Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) has signed up Transocean's M.G. Hulme, Jr. deepwater unit for a year from September on a rate of $260,000 per day. Plus, the previously idle GSF Rig 141, a shallow-water unit, landed a two-year contract in Egypt on $55,000 per day. In an effort to improve the age profile, Transocean is seeking to sell a total of four older jackups.