ADNOC Drilling has been awarded its first offshore drilling work in Kuwait, a set of contracts from Kuwait Oil Company worth up to 96.5 million Kuwaiti dinars, about 314 million dollars, excluding an optional extension year. The company set out the award in its own statement.
The award covers two offshore jack up rigs on a four year firm term including mobilisation, with a one year extension option on top. Operations are expected to begin in the fourth quarter of 2027. The company will operate one of its own rigs and take the second on a bareboat charter, an arrangement that lets it meet the scope without committing new build capital against a single award. The contracts were approved by the Higher Procurement Committee of Kuwait Petroleum Corporation.
Chief executive Abdulla Al Messabi described the award as the company's entry into offshore Kuwait. That framing matters more than the headline value. The company has spent the past three years converting a domestic Abu Dhabi drilling fleet into a regional contractor, and Kuwait is one of the harder markets in the Gulf for an outside driller to enter, because the state operator has historically run long standing relationships with a small group of international rig owners.
The timing sits alongside Kuwait's own production ambitions. The country has set out plans to lift crude capacity materially by the end of the decade, and offshore acreage is one of the few places that capacity can come from, since the onshore fields are mature. Offshore activity in Kuwaiti waters has been limited by comparison with its neighbours, so a four year firm commitment for two jack ups is a signal about the pace the operator now intends.
For the Abu Dhabi company the contract adds term backlog at a point when day rates in the shallow water jack up market have come under pressure from new capacity entering the Gulf. A four year firm period with a fifth year option is longer than the market norm and locks in utilisation well past the current cycle. The bareboat element also means part of the revenue arrives without the capital charge of a wholly owned unit.
The dollar figure is approximate. The company stated the value in Kuwaiti dinars, and the dollar equivalent has been reported at slightly different levels depending on the conversion applied, so the dinar number is the hard one.
