Contracts are pouring into the rig market and the day rates for the most advanced drilling rigs are reaching the top levels of 2008. “The rush has just begun”, says analyst Martin Huseby Karlsen in DNB Markets, Dagens Næringsliv writes. The oil companies are desperate and rates will continue to climb in course of the autumn, the paper writes.
Huseby Karlsen points out that the market is now about to be emptied. There are almost no vacant rigs in the ultra-deepwater market in 2013.
The analyst believes that most important for the rig rates and development in both the rig and oil service stocks is that oil prices remain stable, and above 75 dollars a barrel. Then the market will become even tighter, he believes.
Norway earlier this summer announced the 22nd License Round, where 72 out of 86 blocks are located in the Barents Sea. “The Barents Sea is now a Sea of Opportunities”, Minister of Oil and Energy Ola Borten Moe said during the announcement.
