Dryships Inks Deal with ENI
DryShips Inc. a global provider of marine transportation services for drybulk and petroleum cargoes, and through its majority owned subsidiary, Ocean Rig UDW Inc. (ORIG) (“Ocean Rig”), of offshore deepwater drilling services, today announced that certain of Ocean Rig’s subsidiaries have entered into an Omnibus Agreement with ENI Angola S.p.pursuant to which ENI has exercised its option to extend the contract for the drillship Ocean Rig Poseidon for a further one year until the second quarter of 2017.
As part of the contract extension for the Ocean Rig Poseidon, Ocean Rig has agreed to adjust the existing dayrate of the Ocean Rig Poseidon contract in exchange for ENI agreeing to enter into two contracts (the “New ENI Contracts”) for the employment of one or more of Ocean Rig’s available drillships in West Africa starting in the first quarter of 2015 for an aggregate period of approximately 8 months.
As a result of this Agreement the total contract backlog of Ocean Rig has increased by approximately $187.0 million.
The Agreement outlined above remains subject to customary closing conditions including the approval by national authorities which Ocean Rig expects will be obtained before the end of the first quarter of 2015.
