Offshore driller Noble Corporation has reached an agreement to sell a pair of cold-stacked drillships—Pacific Meltem and Pacific Scirocco. While the contractor did not specify the buyer or the price, it expects to finalize the deal by midyear. The rigs will be sold “in a manner intended to effectively retire them,” Noble CEO Robert Eifler told analysts on the company’s first-quarter earnings call, suggesting they are being sold outside of the oil and gas business.
In February, Noble announced it had permanently retired the Pacific Meltem and Pacific Scirocco, along with scrapping semisubmersibles Ocean Onyx and Ocean Valiant and reassigning drillships Globetrotter I and II to pursue intervention work.
Pacific Meltem is a Samsung 96K built in 2014; Pacific Scirocco is a 6th-generation Samsung 12,000 built in 2011.
Both units are currently stacked in Las Palmas, Canary Islands, Spain.
In addition, Eifler also said that the company expects to have “a clearer outlook for these opportunities very soon” speaking to the intervention work being pursued by the two Globetrotters. He added, however, that if the work for both rigs does not materialize, one of the units would likely be cold-stacked or retired.
The contractor added new contracts with total value between $2.2 to $2.7 billion (including additional services and mobilization payments but excluding unexercised extension options) during the first quarter of 2025.
Noble Voyager and a second Noble V-class 7th-generation drillship to be named have each been awarded 4-year contracts with Shell in the US Gulf of Mexico. The two contracts, scheduled to commence in mid-2026 and Q4 2027, each include a base day rate value of $606 million (including upgrades and services but excluding additional fees for mobilization and demobilization).
The Noble Developer and a Noble V-class 7th-generation drillship to be named in the coming months have each been awarded 16-well (estimated 1,060 days) contracts with TotalEnergies in Suriname which are expected to commence between Q4 2026 and Q1 2027. Together, the firm revenue of the two contracts is $753 million. These contracts allow for an additional $297 million in revenue tied to a collective operational performance program with TotalEnergies.
Semisubmersible Noble Discoverer received a 390-day extension from Petrobras in Colombia, extending the rig from July 2025 to August 2026 at its existing, undisclosed day rate.
Elsewhere, drillship Noble Viking received a contract from Brunei Shell Petroleum for one well plus one option, scheduled to commence in Q4 2025. Jackup Noble Regina Allen received a one-well contract in Suriname. Jackup Noble Intrepid has been awarded a one-well contract with DNO Norge in Norway that is expected to commence in August 2025.
For the first quarter of 2025, Noble posted net income of $108 million, or $0.68 per share, on revenue of about $875 million. This compares to year-ago income of $95.5 million, or $0.67 per share, on revenues of $637 million.
