ADNOC Drilling Wins $313.6M Kuwait Oil Company Offshore Rig Contracts
The two four-year contracts are the company's first offshore rig work outside the UAE, with earnings expected from late 2027.
ADNOC Drilling has received award letters for two offshore jack-up drilling contracts from Kuwait Oil Company, with a combined maximum value of $313.6 million (KWD 96.6 million). The awards were announced on Monday. Kuwait Petroleum Corporation's Higher Procurement Committee approved both.
The contracts cover supplying and operating high-specification offshore jack-up rigs. Each carries a four-year firm term including mobilization, plus an option to extend by one year. The $313.6 million ceiling covers the firm period only and excludes the fifth year.
It is the company's first offshore rig work outside the UAE. ADNOC Drilling will deploy one rig it owns and charter a second under a bareboat arrangement.
The contracts sit inside the company's Drill-to-Operate strategy, which ties drilling, oilfield services, engineering and production-related capabilities together while pushing into markets abroad. Kuwait forms part of that international growth and revenue diversification effort.
Chief executive Abdulla Naji Ateya Al Messabi called the awards an important step in the company's international expansion and its entry into Kuwait's offshore drilling market.
The fleet has grown largely through regional deals. ADNOC Drilling agreed to buy 80% of MB Petroleum Services for $204 million, adding 21 rigs, and closed a joint venture with SLB covering 70% of a land-drilling business with eight rigs in Kuwait and Oman. Integrated drilling services came in 2018, and technology-enabled work has expanded through partnerships, advanced drilling capabilities and AI-supported solutions.
Earnings from the Kuwait projects are expected to begin in late 2027 and to run for a full year in 2028. The 2027 share is already built into previously communicated preliminary guidance. The awards remain subject to completion of the relevant contractual formalities.
Shares traded at $1.58 (5.81 AED) around 9:38 AM AST, giving a market capitalization of $25.3 billion (AED 92.96 billion). The company ranked 28th on a 2026 list of 100 most valuable companies.
The Kuwait award extends a presence the company already holds on land through the SLB venture, but offshore jack-ups test execution differently. With earnings not arriving until late 2027, the rigs have to be mobilized and crewed long before any of the $313.6 million reaches the top line.
