Each one in plain English, with the numbers worked through for a shareholder.
28 Mar 2007production update▲ Good
The ATWOOD HUNTER's Woodside contract was extended to April/May 2008 with a dayrate bump to $245,000 as it relocated from Mauritania to Libya; the SOUTHERN CROSS kept drilling for Melrose off Bulgaria with options that could extend the work into August.
Fleetwide operating costs ran higher than normal in early fiscal 2007 -- year-end bonuses, startup costs on rigs entering new regions (Thailand, India, West Africa) and the HUNTER's inspection downtime all added up, though none of it changed the outlook.
Columbia Wanger Asset Management, L.P reported a ATWOOD OCEANICS INC shareholding of 3,644,950 shares (11.73% of votes) in a periodic institutional filing.
The ATWOOD HUNTER lost 14 days to a required regulatory inspection in December, while the newly-mobilized ATWOOD BEACON began a 25-month drilling program in India.
The ATWOOD FALCON's shipyard upgrade wrapped up on budget at about $32 million, though expensing those costs temporarily pushed up its quarterly operating costs.
Woodside locked in a two-year extension for the ATWOOD EAGLE at roughly $405,000/day starting December 2007, while the FALCON's shipyard project stayed within its roughly $32 million budget.
Fleet update: the newly-upgraded SEAHAWK started up off Equatorial Guinea at $68,430/day, the SOUTHERN CROSS relocated to the Black Sea as planned, and the FALCON's Shell-funded shipyard upgrade (about $32 million, three-quarters paid by Shell) stayed on budget.
The ATWOOD HUNTER lost nine days of revenue (about $2.2 million) in August to an unplanned equipment swap -- a minor blemish on an otherwise fully-booked fleet.
The ATWOOD SOUTHERN CROSS picked up a fourth back-to-back Black Sea contract, this one with Vanco International, pushing its booked work into early 2008.
The NYSE flagged a possible governance-compliance gap over director independence; Atwood said it believed it was already compliant and filed to document that five of its directors are independent.