COLUMN | It's not over: ICBC sales; Astro purchases; Golden Energy sale and leaseback; Tullow Oil CEO; more oil company retrenchment [Offshore Accounts]

The chorus to Chappell Roan’s chart topping single The Subway goes, “It's just another day and it's not over (Ah). 'Til it's over, it's never over.”

These lyrics are especially relevant to several offshore stories this week. It’s another week and for a certain Chinese lender and a beleaguered listed UK oil company, it never seems to be over.

ICBC sells another two Bourbon ships

Last week, we observed that Tuesday, September 2, would be “auction central,” which would see the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) try to sell seven ships from the Bourbon fleet by auction on the shipbid.net website, after the French owner defaulted on the lease.

Auction central turned out to be an overstatement. Two more vessels were sold, bringing the total the lender has flogged to nine now. Eight unsold vessels from previous rounds of the auction will now roll-over for new bidding on the Chinese auction platform on today’s publication date and tomorrow (September 8 and 9). As usual, we reissue an updated version of the state of play here:

Sister sells for less

What’s important to note is the difference in the sale price of the almost identical sisterships Bourbon Rainbow and Bourbon Calm, both platform supply vessels (PSVs) with 928 square metres of clear deck space and over 4,000 DWT. Rainbow was the first vessel sold at the end of July for US$23.58 million. Calm was a year older, but sold for US$20.24 million, some US$3.34 million less.

One would not expect a one-year age difference to account for a 17 per cent price difference between the ships, especially as we understand that many potential bidders have not been able to inspect the units, making comparison of condition hard.

The fall in price between the first vessel sold and the second in just six weeks supports our view that there are few buyers out there even for the nicest tonnage in the ICBC auction (and these two ships were by far the nicest, being in service, not cold-stacked). Both vessels started with the same reserve price of US$18 million, and the first auction saw twice as many bids placed for Rainbow as for Calm on the online platform.

If further sister vessels are sold, we would anticipate that the next price will be lower again. This is a risk inherent in the one-by-one strategy ICBC has adopted, feeding forty vessels into the market over a protracted period, often with similar vessels offered at similar times.

Chappell Roan first rose to international prominence in 2024 with the single Good Luck, Babe! Without further significant price cuts on the remaining unsold and re-offered ships, we anticipate that this might be a good anthem to whistle in the halls of ICBC.

Astro enters the PSV market

The same week that Calm was sold also saw Astro Maritime of the UAE, now owned by India’s Adani Group, buy two PSVs from India’s Alphard Maritime. No price was given for the purchase of Astro Rastaban (built in 2020, believed to be the former AM Paradise) and Astro Rigel (built in 2023, believed to be the former AM Prosperity), two Chinese-designed and -built, diesel-electric sister vessels of 78 metres LOA, DP2-equipped, with 800 square metres of clear deck space and around 4,000 DWT.

The purchases lift Astro’s fleet size to 44 vessels and mark its first operations in West Africa, although how long the newly purchased pair will remain in the region is open to question, given that the West African market seems to have slowed down, with at least a quartet of Tidewater PSVs available and several similar PSVs from Blue Ridge of Singapore and other owners.

Astro on a roll, Alphard churning

Since Adani purchased 80 per cent of Astro from its founders for US$185 million last year, the company has continued its growth plans. Astro will soon take delivery of two 90-ton bollard pull diesel-electric anchor handling tug supply vessels (AHTS) in the coming weeks from Jingjiang Nanyang shipyard in China, Astro Sculptor and Astro Sagitta, along with two ballastable barges scheduled for completion late in 2025.

As per the company’s CEO, Mark Humphreys, Astro is demonstrating, “ambition, agility, and position as a truly global offshore partner.”

For the sellers, Alphard, the sale of the two modern vessels marks a period of fleet churn. As we reported in May, Alphard bought four vessels from the cash-strapped Mexican owner Cotemar, being the 78-metre long, 785-square-metre clear deck DP sister PSVs Atlas and Olimpo, which were renamed AM Precious and AM Phoenix and are being relocated to India, along with the 2008-built, 70-metre long, 50-passenger smaller PSV Tauro, and one AHTS, Orion I, of 60 tonnes bollard pull built in 2008.

Neptune Maritime Leasing

Tradewinds has reported that some of Alphard’s fleet of Chinese built-PSVs is financed by Neptune Maritime Leasing.

Neptune dove even further into the offshore market in July when it announced it was financing a US$95 million sale and leaseback deal to refinance the seven PSVs in the fleet of Norwegian owned Golden Energy Offshore, being Energy Duchess, Energy Swan, Energy Empress, Energy Pace, Energy Passion, Energy Partner and Energy Paradise.

Neptune is one of the new alternative lenders that has stepped into the gap created in the ship finance market by the exit of many conventional shipping banks, reducing their exposure to the entire industry.

Golden Energy’s results for the three-month period to June 30 showed the company reporting a loss of around US$8 million. With the North Sea market in the doldrums, it is a bold call by Neptune to add to its PSV lending book.

On September 3, Tidewater fixed the PSV Highland Chieftain on the spot market in Aberdeen for a record September low of £3,000 (US$4,000), a shocking rate for a 2013-built unit with 849 square metres of clear deck and 4,000 DWT.

We can anticipate players with a strong exposure to the North Sea spot market like Golden Energy, Fletcher Shipping and even Aurora sending vessels out of Aberdeen and Bergen to other markets, especially Latin America, West Africa and the Mediterranean. They have no choice.

We have already seen Rem Offshore sell the PSV Rem Supporter (built in 2010 by K Line and purchased by Rem along with three sister PSVs for US$44 million in January 2022) to CMM of Brazil. Last week, with perfect timing to contrast the fates of the two markets, CMM announced that the ship, now renamed Multiplicity, had been accepted on-hire by Petrobras.

Standard’s timing looks good

The shareholders the former supply vessel owner formerly known as Standard Drilling and Standard Supply, which sold all its ships to Evangelos Marinakis’ Capital Offshore in 2023, now look remarkably prescient, too. It remains to be seen whether the shell company that remained after the sale, now renamed Standard Coin, will make a fortune in Bitcoin and crypto.

However, what is certain is that they will not lose money on PSVs over the winter. Let’s just hope that Mr Marinakis can contain his notorious temper, as his PSVs in the North Sea charter for less than operating costs just 18 months into his ownership. It is rumoured that in an attempt to cut costs and increase his international marketing, Capital will be changing ship managers in its PSV fleet to United Offshore Support of Germany.

Unfortunately for PSV owners, in the words of Chappell Roan, it's not over, and it is not likely to be over for another seven months, when maybe the spring of 2026 will bring some relief. Certainly, the prospects for the months ahead in the North Sea look bleak as winter is always the weakest season for Northern European construction and drilling support.

Tullow Oil's got a new CEO

The news last week that Britain's Wood Group had finally agreed to a £216 million (US$291 million) conditional takeover bid from Dubai-based Sidara means that the London Stock Exchange will lose a troubled penny stock that has disappointed shareholders for years.

Sidara’s takeover involved multiple offers, price reductions, extensions and rejections, and now the UAE company will assume Wood’s US$1.6 billion of debt and will inject US$450 million of cash into the company, which at least prevents Wood going bust.

For those readers missing the fun of a struggling British listed company weighed down with debt trying to survive, don’t worry.

The sale of Wood simply means that the spotlight will turn to Tullow Oil. Tullow labours under US$1.6 billion of debt, and, like Wood, has embarked on a round of restructuring and asset sales in Gabon and Kenya to stay afloat. Tullow shares have plunged to just eleven pence, giving the company a market capitalisation of around US$200 million.

Last week, Ian Perks was named as the beleaguered company’s new CEO, starting the job next Monday after a career with TotalEnergies, Anadarko and BG.

Tullow had Chief Financial Officer Richard Miller as acting CEO on an interim basis since Rahul Dhir stepped down in February. Mr Dhir’s resignation came on the collapse of discussions for Kosmos to buy Tullow in December 2024, and since then the shares have halved again.

Kosmos was the second company to fail to make a deal with Tullow under Mr Dhir’s tenure. Capricorn Energy scrapped its merger with Tullow in 2022 in favour of a combination with Israeli gas producer NewMed Energy instead.

The new CEO's got challenges

Tullow really is a falling knife, much like the Wood Group before it, which is why both Kosmos and Capricorn walked away. Tullow reported a cash burn of US$188 million in the first half of this year, as it did last year, and has a May 2026 deadline to refinance US$1.3 billion of its debt. So, no pressure on Mr Perks, then.

The full horror story is detailed in the company’s half year results report, which you can view here.

In a company press release last week, the new CEO said his near-term priority will be, “to put the company on a long-term sustainable financial footing”. This will involve improving the company’s production in Ghana, where it operates two FPSOs on the underperforming deepwater Jubilee field, the country’s first, and on the TEN complex of fields. Jubilee has been affected by higher than expected water cut from certain wells, and TEN production has also been falling.

Drill, baby, drill

More drilling is required to restore falling production, and Tullow needs the government of Ghana to pay US$50 million owed in late gas payments.

Tullow’s problems are a reminder that even after production has begun, fields require constant attention and additional drilling and seismic work to maintain and enhance performance. The drillship Noble Venturer will recommence drilling in the fourth quarter of this year for Tullow, after a break for its special survey in Spain.

The next well is planned to be a Jubilee field production well to come onstream around the end of the year. A further four firm Jubilee wells are then planned for 2026. Processing of the 4D seismic, shot in the first quarter, is currently ongoing, the company said, which will help validate the locations for the later wells in the campaign.

Tullow will further enhance this data set with the capture of an ocean bottom node seismic survey in the fourth quarter of 2025, which will underpin infill drilling across Jubilee and TEN. I would like to anticipate a further drilling campaign later in 2026.

Tullow can only solve its debt problem with higher production, in the absence of higher oil prices.

This is great news for vessel owners and service companies alike, but Tullow’s problems have a big impact on its own staff, as the company tries to shrink its overhead. The results announcement ominously referred to, “cost base optimisation savings of US$10 million expected to reduce 2025 annual net general and administrative costs to US$40 million, with group targeted savings of circa US$50 million over the next three years compared to 2024.”

Unlike Wood, there are no buyers on the Horizon and until the debt is refinanced and the production in Ghana increased, there probably won’t be.

It looks like it will be over for some Tullow staff as cost savings bite.

More oil company lay-offs as ConocoPhillips seeks "competitive edge"

And Tullow employees are not alone facing the uncertainty and stress of lay-offs.

On September 3, ConocoPhillips announced it would fire between 20 and 25 per cent of its global workforce as part of a broad restructuring. The company took over Marathon Oil for US$22 billion in November last year in an all stock deal, and had promised investors “synergies” of US$1 billion from the acquisition.

Guess what? Synergies is a euphemism for job losses, and for the good of the company, ConocoPhillips CEO Ryan Lance decided that some downsizing was needed to meet his promises to investors.

Reuters reported that the Houston-headquartered oil company had, “hired management consulting firm [the] Boston Consulting Group to advise on the restructuring and layoff program, referred to internally as 'competitive edge'."

The company’s shares fell sharply on the news of the firings, suggesting that perhaps such a drastic set of cuts indicated further financial weakness ahead for the company. The stock fell over six per cent last week.

BP said last month that it planned to reduce its 40,000-strong cadre of office staff by at least 15 per cent, and in February, Chevron announced it would cut a fifth of its employees. Petronas Carigali of Malaysia and SLB (formerly Schlumberger) have also announced headcount reductions, also known as mass firings.

OMG! OMV is also firing staff

Then there was a further blow to industry confidence on Friday, September 5, when the Austrian newspaper Kurier reported that Austrian oil, gas, and chemicals group OMV was preparing to cut around 2,000 of its 23,000 employees worldwide. Its Romanian subsidiary, OMV Petrom, will be among the most affected by the restructuring, the coverage claimed.

OMV Petrom is Romania’s largest company by turnover and had 10,158 employees at the end of June, according to the Romanian business press. OWV Petrom is currently developing the Neptun Deep gas field in the Black Sea using the semi-sub Transocean Barents, and has plans to drill two deepwater exploration wells off Bulgaria later this year using the drillship Noble Globetrotter I. 

The wave of redundancies across multiple companies with interests both onshore and offshore across multiple countries is not a positive sign.

But don’t worry. As Ms Roan puts it, “it's just another day and it's not over.”

Again, Good Luck, Babe!

Background reading

Last week, we did a deep dive into why receiving US$117 million from its key customer Ørsted was terrible news for wind turbine installation vessel owner Cadeler, and why writing off US$3 billion when scrapping nine rigs shows that Transocean’s balance sheet is perhaps less solid than one might hope.