Savanna Energy Services Corp. has signed a contract to expand its drilling operations in Australia, the company said in a news release.

Savanna will deploy four top drive single (TDS) drilling rigs to operate in Queensland for an existing customer to support its east coast LNG project. The new design TDS 2000 and TDS 3000 rigs are under multiyear take-or-pay contracts with the first rig expected to begin operations in first-quarter 2016, according to the release.

The capital cost of the four new TDS drilling rigs will be allocated to Savanna's 2015 and 2016 capital programs and will aggregate $63.4 million.

Currently, Savanna has five drilling rigs and five workover rigs operating in Australia. The company is in the process of deploying four additional workover rigs and three flush-by units under long-term take-or-pay contracts, the release said. These newbuilds will be operational by first-quarter 2015 with the majority of the rigs in the field by year-end 2014.