Atwood Oceanics announces contract extension for Atwood Orca jackup rig

Atwood Oceanics announced that one of its subsidiaries has agreed to a four-month extension on the jackup rig Atwood Orca with Mubadala Petroleum for drilling operations offshore Thailand. The new contract is at an undisclosed dayrate that is higher than the current dayrate, and it includes two four-month options that are priced at successively higher dayrates than the new firm dayrate.

As a result of this contract, the expected earliest availability of the Atwood Orca is August 2018, assuming no options are exercised. If both options were to be exercised, the drilling program would be expected to extend until approximately April 2019.