Houston-based international offshore drilling contractor GlobalSantaFe reported that the company's worldwide SCORE, or Summary of Current Offshore Rig Economics, for December 2001 was down from the previous month's SCORE by 1.7 percent.
Looking back at 2001, GlobalSantaFe President and CEO Sted Garber said, "SCORE clearly reflects some of the key trends in the
major offshore drilling markets over the year. While international drilling markets have benefited from increased activity by the majors, Gulf of Mexico drilling markets softened as highly cash-flow-sensitive independents responded to sharply declining natural gas prices."
GlobalSantaFe's SCORE compares the profitability of current mobile offshore drilling rig dayrates to the profitability of dayrates at the 1980-1981 peak of the offshore drilling cycle. In the 1980-1981 period, when SCORE averaged 100 percent, new contract dayrates equaled the sum of daily cash operating costs plus approximately $700 per day per million dollars invested. In addition to a
worldwide SCORE covering key types of competitive offshore drilling rigs in key drilling markets, a separate SCORE is calculated for certain types of rigs and certain regions to indicate the relative
condition of rig markets.