Singapore-based Sembcorp Marine Ltd. has won US $4 billion worth of contracts from Sete Brasil to design and build five drillships destined to work in the deepwater pre-salt Santos basin offshore Brazil.

Sembcorp will build all five drillships based on its wholly-owned subsidiary Jurong Offshore’s proprietary Jurong Espadon drillship design.

Earlier this year, Sembcorp’s wholly-owned Brazilian shipyard Estaleiro Jurong Aracruz Ltda secured a $792.5 million contract for the design and construction of another drillship with Guarapari Drilling B.V., Netherlands, a subsidiary of Sete Brasil. That also will be of the Jurong Espadon design.

This award by Sete Brasil follows another it issued earlier this week to Sembcorp’s local Singapore rival Keppel Offshore & Marine also worth more than $4 billion for five newbuild deepwater semisubmersible drilling rigs, again for use in Petrobras’ pre-salt drilling program. These will be built at Keppel’s BrasFELS yard in Angra dos Reis, Brazil.

All of Sembcorp’s drillships will be equipped with state-of-the-art drilling facilities, a larger deck area, efficient deck arrangement,and a large moon pool for enhanced drilling operations as well as DP-3 (Dynamic Positioning Class 3) capabilities and superior motion. They will be capable of operating in 3,048 m (10,000 ft) of water and drilling to total depths of 12,192 m (40,000 ft), with accommodation facilities for a crew of 180.

The drilling units are scheduled for delivery between Q2 2015 and Q2 2019. On delivery, all six will be chartered to state-owned major Petrobras for 15 years. Three of the drillships will be operated by Odfjell and the other three by Seadrill.

Estaleiro Jurong Aracruz Ltda, Sembcorp’s first overseas integrated new yard facility, is located in the state of Espirito Santo. The wholly-owned locally incorporated 82.5-hectare new shipyard, which broke ground in December 2011, is scheduled for full completion at end 2014.