Spicer

Petrobras is Hoarding the World's Deep Sea Drillers

This article is contains a few errors, inspite off the fact that it's mostly a copy-past from a Bloomberg article.

Noble Corp(NE) is a driller, Noble Energy (NBL) is an E&P company and a spinoff of Noble Corp.

Atwood doesn't own a single rig that capable of operating at depths above 5000 feet, so what does it have to with Tupi, Petrobras or ultra dep water drilling. Ensco(ESV) has a much greater exposure than Atwood to the (ultra) deep water market.

"Much of Petrobras' discovery is in oceans at depths of 4-5 miles. Very few rigs on the globe will have capability to drill there. "

[url=www.bloomberg.com/apps...]From Bloomberg:[/url]
"The Tupi field is in a region that lies about 250 kilometers (402 kilometers) off the coast of Rio de Janeiro in water as much as 3 kilometers deep. The oil rests a further 5 to 7 kilometers below the ocean floor."
Thats about 2 miles of water and 3 to 4 miles of rock, sand and salt. So water depth 2 miles, total depth 5-6 miles. As the Bloomberg article you quoted (without quotation marks) states there are current 21 vessels capable of operating in those depths. Plus there are about as many under construction at various shipyards.

Exxon has a 40% interest in block BM-S-22 in the Santos Basin and is the operator on the block. Try googling BM-S-22. You might find the seismic data on that block interesting.

[url=www.bloomberg.com/apps...]The original Bloomberg article[/url]