Shipyards which are capable of building offshore drilling rigs, such as ultra-deepwater drillship and etc., stay busy winning newbuilding projects for those rigs.
According to IHS Petrodata, global newbuilding orderbook for offshore drilling rig turned out to be around 212 vessels/units, of which about 131 vessels/units are being built currently.
The 131 vessels/rigs can break down as: 37 drillships, 11 semi-submersible drilling rigs, 75 jack-up rigs and eight tender-assisted rigs. Delivery dates range from July, 2013 to the end of 2015 and those which are waiting for construction will be delivered from early 2014 to mid-2019.
Offshore drilling facilities can be arranged in order of rated depth, drillship (deepest), DP-type semi-submersible rig, tender-assisted rigs and jack-up.
Newbuilding orders for offshore drilling rig got busy towards the second half of this year and a total of 11 vessels/rigs (five jack-ups, five drillships, one semi-submersible rig; options are excluded) were newly ordered solely in this month so far.
Up to date in July, in drillship segment, Korea's Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering and Samsung Heavy Industries gained orders for three and two units, each, while the order for one semi-submersible rig was placed at Samsung. In jack-up rig market, Shanhaiguan Shipbuilding Industry of China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (CSIC) won two while PPL Shipyard of Singapore builder Sembcorp Marine gained an order for two and Keppel FELS won one unit.
Since June, 2012, for one year, 81 units of offshore drilling facility have been awarded in total, of which there are 45 jack-up rigs, 32 semi-submersible drilling rigs/drillships and four tender-assisted rigs.
Particularly, among 32 semi-submersible drilling rigs and drillships, except one semi-sub rig, every rig is to be operated in ultra-deepwater with rated water depth of more than 7,500 feet (2,286m) and drillship turned out to have higher preferences over others.
From 2008 to 2012, orders for drillship recorded 90 units while those for semi-submersible drilling rig just came at 29 units.
Meanwhile, major countries building offshore drilling facilities, such as China, Singapore and Korea, gained orders for 29 vessels/rigs, 16 vessels/rigs and 14 vessels/rigs, respectively, taking 73% of newbuilding market together while the rest was won by yards in such countries as Azerbaijan, Brazil, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, the United Arab Emirates and etc.