Another quarter is in the books, and the market for marine drilling rigs is still tight.
Tight enough, in fact, that Transocean (NYSE:RIG) was able to contract with BP (NYSE:BP) for one rig through 2010 at a price of about $520,000 per day. And if that number sounds high to you, it is. Of course, it's not as though this has all gone unnoticed -- the stock of Transocean, as well as that of other drillers like Diamond Offshore (NYSE:DO) and GlobalSantaFe (NYSE:GSF), has continued to march higher.
For this quarter, Transocean saw revenue rise nearly 30%. Utilization improved both sequentially and annually (to about 82%), and so did the dayrates (up 23% annually, up 6% sequentially). And while management has been cautious with respect to higher operating expenses, the company still posted a near-doubling in operating income, and sequential field operating income rose 9%.
That said, management's comments suggested that they weren't able to achieve all of their scheduled maintenance and shipyard work this quarter. What that means, then, is that costs will likely look a good bit higher in the next quarter as the company continues with these necessary projects.
All in all, there really isn't anything terribly new about the offshore drilling market. Near-term demand continues to run ahead of supply, and Transocean is about as busy as it can be. In fact, it stated that only about 3% of available capacity was uncommitted for 2006, with just 15% unavailable the next year. And while there was a note of caution regarding the jack-up market in 2009, there's quite a bit of time between now and then for demand to change (for better or worse).
For now at least, the company continues to rake in cash as clients like BP, Statoil (NYSE:STO), and Chevron (NYSE:CVX) will seemingly pay almost any price to secure access to high-end rigs. And that leads me to think that demand will be fine for a few more years to come. Most major oil companies seem to be budgeting off of $40/barrel oil assumptions, and if you connect the dots between today's production level and projections a few years out, it's clear that a lot of wells need to get drilled.
Drill down for more Foolish thoughts on energy services:
Fool contributor Stephen Simpson has no financial interest in any stocks mentioned (that means he's neither long nor short the shares).
