Seadrill Partners To Buy Tender Rig Owner T-16 For $200 Mln

(RTTNews) - Seadrill Partners LLC(SDLP), an owner and operator of offshore drilling rig, Friday said it entered into an agreement to acquire the company that owns the tender rig T-16 from Seadrill Limited, for $200 million. Seadrill Partners will issue about 3.3 million unregistered common units to Seadrill Limited, at a price of $32.29, amounting to approximately $107 million. The remaining $93 million will be lessened as debt outstanding under the credit facility secured by T-16, Seadrill Partners said. The deal is expected to close within October.

Seadrill Partners further said, upon closure of the deal, the Board has considered a quarterly cash distribution increase of about 7 percent to between $0.025 and $0.03. This is expected to fully effective with respect to the December quarter.

The T-16 began operations in September 2013 under a five-year contract with Chevron in Thailand at an initial dayrate of $115,500. The debt secured by the T-16 matures in December 2017 and has an interest rate of LIBOR plus a margin of 3.25 percent per annum.