Diamond Offshore Drilling, Inc.Q3 2009 Earnings Call Transcript

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2009-10-22 12:15:29.0

Tags: Offshore, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Australia, Call Transcript, Earnings, Bounty, Mergers & Acquisitions, Corporate Law, Investment, Finance, Business Operations, Seeking Alpha, Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc.

Question-and-Answer Session

Operator

Thank you. (Operator Instructions) Your first question is from Dan Boyd with Goldman Sachs.

Dan Boyd - Goldman Sachs

Quick question on what your outlook is in Australia. I know there are a number of L&G projects that have reached FID, and maybe that demand is out for some years, but you do have a couple of rigs there now, one of them currently idle. If we could look out two to five years what are your expectations for that market?

Larry Dickerson

I'll let Bob Blair comment on that. I guess the rig we have idle there, the Ocean Bounty is the rig that we took off of a contract and put the Ocean America on instead to provide some more capability in that market. The Bounty requires a substantial amount of shipyard work to refurbish the rig and we’ve pretty much elected at this time to defer that decision and to keep the Bounty in a cold stack mode for sometime. But Bob, any comments looking out.

Bob Blair

Well, the two floaters that we have in the area have contracts extending to 2011 or late 2010. We’ve already begun discussions with the current operators about ongoing work as well as the operator that who are moving the Ocean America to Australia. And all indications are that there continues to be interest in the drilling programs that these rigs are working on. We see it as a viable market going forward.

Dan Boyd - Goldman Sachs

Your comment on the Bounty actually brings me to my next question. I think that's a good point. There are a lot of jack-ups at the end, mid-water rigs out there that are idle currently. Can you talk about the market of some of those rigs need quite a bit of investment before they’d be brought back, and what level of demand or day rate do you think you would need to see to bring those rigs back. Can you talk generally about your fleet some of rigs that what type of investment they might require?

Larry Dickerson

Well, it all depends on what sort of market we'd want to put the Bounty back into service for, but we are $50 million to $100 million in cost to refurbish that rig is our estimate without any sort of substantial upgrade. At one point in time, we have done one of our Victory-class upgrade since that, where the rig is, but at the moment we’d much rather put our money into acquisitions similar to the Courage and Valor. It's the same thing on refurbishing the Bounty, that number it was at the high end $100 million dollars, I think is better spent at the acquisition prices that we're seeing right now on those two rigs.

 

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