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.