SE Asia Becoming A No-Go Zone For International Jackup Contractors

I wrote about the emergence of the Asian Drillers back in January 2014 warning that they would inevitably receive preferential treatment in their home countries to the detriment of international contractors. The current downturn has had the effect of emphasizing this trend to where it is now almost impossible for international jackup drillers to win contracts in Malaysia and Vietnam. Now recent events have included Indonesia into these sanctuaries for domestic drillers.

Even before the downturn, Petronas, which has final approval on all rig contracts in Malaysia, was showing preferential treatment for bumiputra (literally son of the soil) contractors UMW, a politically well-connected conglomerate, and Perisai- albeit the latter is not regarded as 100% bumiputra by Petronas owing to an apparent foreign ownership content either because US Driller Hercules manages the first and second rigs for Perisai, or perhaps there is actually some foreign ownership in the rigs or in the company.

http://oilpro.com/post/22172/se-asia-becoming-no-go-zone-international-jackup-contractors?utm_source=DailyNewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter&utm_term=2016-02-09&utm_content=Feature_1_txt