- November is just two days old, but offshore drillers Transocean (RIG -4.7%), Seadrill (SDRL -7.2%), Diamond Offshore (DO -3.6%), Atwood Oceanics (ATW -2.6%) and Noble Corp. (NE -5.2%) are down more than 8% so far this month.
- The Zephirin Group thinks plunging oil prices are already beginning to impact demand for offshore drilling platforms, and the current dayrate range for ultra-deepwater drillships of mid $400-500/day is not helping the outlook.
- The latest piece of evidence of the weakness is ATW's six-month postponement of the delivery of two drillships under construction, which Zephirin expects will cost the company an additional $40M-$45M per rig.
- The firm also foresees a high possibility that the 2015-16 market and contract renewals rates could shift below expectations when energy companies start announcing 2015 capex budgets late this year.