SeaDrill to buy 37 percent stake in Apexindo

SeaDrill to buy 37 percent stake in Apexindo

Petter Narvestad, Associated Press, Oslo

SeaDrill Ltd., an oil-rig owner controlled by Norwegian
billionaire John Fredriksen, agreed to buy as much as 37 percent
of Indonesian oil driller Apexindo Pratama Duta PT for a maximum
of US$65 million to expand further in Asia.

SeaDrill will buy between 32 percent and 37 percent of
Jakarta- based Apexindo, according to a statement on Hugin Online
today. Apexindo will help market and operate SeaDrill's rigs in
the Middle East and Asia, especially targeting the Indonesian
market.

"We are very pleased with this investment which gives us a
strategic position in an well established drilling contractor in
the Far East," Fredriksen, chairman of Hamilton, Bermuda-based
SeaDrill, said in the statement. "We feel that the investment
includes instant value as well as significant upside."

Fredriksen, 61, Norway's richest man, is betting record crude
prices will spur producers to spend more searching for oil
deposits at sea, boosting demand and rates for oil rigs. He's
financing his expansion with proceeds from two years of record
earnings from his shipping businesses, including Frontline Ltd.,
the world's biggest oil-tanker company by capacity.

Apexindo is a unit of PT Medco Energi Internasional,
Indonesia's biggest publicly traded oil producer. SeaDrill said
it will buy the stock in a share sale planned by Apexindo.

SeaDrill on June 21 bid for the rest of rig owner Odfjell
Invest Ltd. after building an 89 percent stake. On July 19 the
company said it had bought 24.5 percent of rig company Ocean Rig
Asa for 1.39 billion kroner ($212 million).

Fredriksen has also ordered more than $1 billion worth of oil
rigs from yards in Singapore. The company owns and operates three
jack-up rigs. Two more such rigs are under construction and
scheduled for delivery in the second half of next year. In
addition, SeaDrill has ordered two semi-submersible drilling
rigs, capable of operating in deep water, from SembCorp Marine
Ltd.'s Jurong Shipyard.

Transocean Inc., the world's largest offshore oil and natural-
gas driller, said on May 3 first-quarter profit quadrupled as
more exploration at companies such as Chevron Corp. boosted rig
demand.

Shares of Apexindo rose 4.8 percent to close at Rp 650 rupiah
(7 U.S.cents) today.