Globalsantafe Corp News

Transocean Ltd on Thursday won the dismissal of an appeal by shareholders accusing the owner of the doomed Deepwater Horizon drilling rig of deceiving them about its safety practices prior to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said the lead plaintiff waited two months too long to sue over alleged misstatements in an Oct. 2, 2007, proxy statement for the offshore drilling company's merger with GlobalSantaFe Corp. Shares of Transocean rose 3 percent after the decision was issued. Geoffrey Johnson, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, declined to comment. Transocean and its lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Worldwide oil and gas drilling contractor GlobalSantaFe Corp. reported net income for the third quarter ended September 30, 2003, of $15.1 million, or $0.06 per diluted share, on revenues of $458.1 million, as compared to net income of $75.0 million, or $0.32 per diluted share, on revenues of $514.4 million for the same quarter in 2002. For the nine months ended September 30, 2003, GlobalSantaFe reported net income of $104.9 million, or $0.45 per diluted share, on revenues of $1,408.5 million, as compared to net income of $225.5 million, or $0.95 per diluted share, on revenues of $1,504.8 million for the corresponding period in 2002.

Offshore driller open to mergers GlobalSantaFe Corp., the world's second-largest offshore driller, is open to merger or acquisition prospects, which would be healthy for the drilling industry, according to the company. Transocean, also based in Houston, is the world's largest offshore driller by sales. Source: Houston Chronicle

According to The Post Gazette, jack-up and deep-water rigs are leaving the Gulf of Mexico for more lucrative jobs elsewhere. This is expected to accelerate production declines in the Gulf, putting upward pressure on domestic energy prices. The rig exodus is squeezing what was an already tight market for drilling equipment. In 2001, about 148 rigs were in the Gulf. Now, about 90 remain, and more are expected to leave soon. The rig migration will have the most pronounced effect on natural-gas production and prices because most of the rigs leaving the Gulf are jack-ups used to find gas in shallower waters. Gulf gas reservoirs are often quickly exhausted, so energy companies must keep punching new wells to maintain production. Why has the rig count dropped so sharply?

GlobalSantaFe Corp. reported that the company's worldwide SCORE, or Summary of Current Offshore Rig Economics, for November 2002 was down from the previous month's SCORE by 1.0 percent. GlobalSantaFe President and CEO Sted Garber said, "Worldwide SCORE was essentially flat in November. SCORE in the various international markets continues to fluctuate. The offshore drilling rig market will likely be in a holding pattern until operators' 2003 exploration and production budgets provide some direction." 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.