It's a gas: Gulf of Mexico looks brighter

摘要

In the longer term―or at least the medium―prospects for Gulf drillers and OSV companies have to be reasonable. But until recently, at least, their attitudes could be characterized as wavering between uncertainty and hesitancy. That's in line with a worldwide situation that saw GlobalSantaFe Corporation reporting last month that its worldwide SCORE, or Summary of Current Offshore Rig Economics, for February 2003 was down from the previous month's SCORE by 0.5 percent, continuing a depressing trend. The SCORE compares the profitability of current mobile offshore drilling rig dayrates to the profitability of dayrates at the 1980-1981 peak of the offshore drilling cycle. A separate SCORE is calculated for certain types of rigs and certain regions to indicate the relative condition of rig markets. The good news in last month's SCORE was that the Gulf of Mexico SCORE actually rose.