VIEW FROM THE TOP
PICKING UP THE DEEPWATER THREAD JULIE ROBERTSON Chairwoman, President and CEO of Noble Corporation
Q: What opportunities does Noble see in Mexico’s oil
longer. But regardless, we are very excited and optimistic
and gas exploration segment and what advantage do
about the timing and about working in Mexico again.
you offer? A: We have a long history in Mexico. We believe we
Q: What cyclical challenges does the offshore rig
understand the market, having operated one of the first
business face?
deepwater rigs in Mexico prior to the Energy Reform. At
A: Currently, we are dealing with an oversupply of rigs. With
the height of our activity, we had 13 jackup rigs in Mexico
the aging rig fleet that many companies had, we all started
which at the time, represented 80 percent of PEMEX’s work
building new rigs in the US$100/b environment and we now
requirements. We are obviously very proud of that and had
have excess capacity. For the first time in a long time, we
a great relationship with the NOC.
are seeing some discipline among the drilling contractors in retiring older assets but we still have a long way to go
I believe Round 2.4 yielded very promising results and
in that area. Since the spinoff of Paragon Offshore, we
many of the clients we work for won significant blocks
have retired seven assets we did not feel were going to be
in the licensing round. This is positive for us as we know
competitive, although they are still perfectly capable of
Mexico and its operating infrastructure very well. There
drilling successfully. I think it will take some time before we
are some green shoots appearing here and there, with
add a significant number of rigs to our fleet because we need
current bid activity up, but we view the recent lease sales
some balance to come back into the marketplace.
as opportunities we are excited about. When we worked in Mexico we did so with very limited expatriate crews and
Q: What sets Noble apart, versus other rig suppliers?
large Mexican national crews and we gained many loyal
A: We believe several things set us apart but first and
Mexican employees during that time.
foremost, our employees and the culture that they create in our company. We have many long-tenured employees
The Noble Advanced Training Center takes our training
on the Noble team and they carry that culture to the new
capability to a different level. With the technology we have
employees we hire on the rig and pass it down. When you
there, as well as our skilled instructors, we are able to train
go on a Noble rig, it truly is different from that of other
and prepare large numbers of employees for key roles on
contractors and even our customers communicate this to us
our rigs. Additionally, many customers have been using the
in a positive manner. Our employees understand what Noble
facility to run DWOS (Drilling While On Simulator) drills,
expects and they also well understand what our customers
which significantly improves their start-up operations and
expect and they deliver excellent results. We have worked
continued drilling operations. We believe this center provides
hard to transform our fleet into a young, highly technical
us an advantage in being able to train people in the Noble
fleet of drilling assets but without qualified employees on
way and to our standards.
those assets, they are just like any other drilling rigs. We have customers asking for certain rigs by name because of
Q: Given that all these changes have happened quite
the reputation those rigs have, not because of the quality
quickly, what is your forecast for the industry over the
of the drilling rig, but because of the crews. This is what
next 10-15 years?
sets us apart.
A: I have asked several of our customers that were active in the last deepwater licensing round what their plans are in terms of timing and I must admit that it was much more
Noble Corporation owns and operates one of the most modern,
aggressive than what I was expecting, which is very good
versatile and technically advanced fleets in the offshore drilling
news. Hopefully, we will begin to see real activity in the
industry. The company is focused largely on ultra-deepwater
Mexican sector of the Gulf by next year, although it could take
and high-specification jackup drilling opportunities
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