Schlumberger-Bauer JV Hints At Increased Interest for Deep Drilling Rigs

Minor movements indicate that ENI’s discovery offshore Egypt might change the cards on the table, not only in the region, but also among companies. Western companies seem interested in acquiring deep-water technologies, while reducing interests in more traditional businesses. 

For instance, on Thursday, Total announced it signed an agreement to sell an interest of 50% plus one share in Géosel Manosque to a 50-50 consortium composed of EDF Invest and Ardian. Total, which currently owns a 53.4% stake in Géosel, will remain a minority shareholder with an interest of 3.4% and will continue to use Géosel’s infrastructure in southern France. 

“The sale of this infrastructure asset is part of our program to sell $10 billion in assets by 2017 and reflects Total’s active portfolio management strategy,” Patrick de La Chevardière, Chief Financial Officer of Total, commented in a note. 

Géosel owns the Manosque underground storage facility in southeastern France and pipelines linking the facility to the oil terminals at Fos and Lavéra.

On the other hand, Bauer Maschinen GmbH, an affiliated company of Bauer AG, signed a non-binding letter of intent (LOI) with Schlumberger.

‘In this LOI, negotiations towards a joint venture, which outlines a common approach for the development and construction of larger deep drilling rigs for the oil, gas and geothermal sectors, have been agreed’ reads the note released on Wednesday. 

As part of the joint venture, rigs shall be developed and specifically built for Schlumberger. In addition, other rig types including associated equipment shall be offered to international rig drilling companies.

‘Both companies anticipate that the planned joint venture can soon achieve revenues of more than one hundred million euros and open up great opportunities for the future.’