Seadrill has sold all of its existing shares in struggling Norwegian fellow rig player Sevan Drilling but positioned itself to potentially still take over the latter company at a future time.

Bermuda-registered Seadrill said it had struck a forward agreement with an unidentified bank covering its entire 28.52% shareholding in Sevan after receiving an “attractive offer” for the acquisition of its 96m shares in return for the forward agreement.

The deal essentially frees up some finance for Seadrill in the short term but gives it the option to step back in, as the forward agreement has exposure to the same number of shares. The shares have been sold at NOK 3.95 each. The forward agreement runs until 30 April 2013 and has a strike price of NOK 3.9851.

- Seadrill has confirmed that it has revised the estimated downtime for its deepwater rigs to approximately 100 days for the fourth quarter of 2012. The company said that in its Q3 2012 financial report it had estimated the downtime for the deepwater rigs in operation at 41 days for the fourth quarter. After closing the latest quarter, however, it said that revised estimates show the downtime has increasing to approximately 100 days, mainly due to BOP issues on several of the rigs. It also added that its Q1 2013 results will also be impacted by the West Hercules drilling rig “taking longer than anticipated to be ready for its next assignment”. The rig started its new contract with Statoil on 31 January, 2013.

Offshore