Pacific Drilling extends option to build ultradeepwater drillship

A subsidiary of drilling contractor Pacific Drilling SA, Luxembourg, negotiated an agreement with Samsung Heavy Industries of South Korea to extend until Dec. 15 an option to construct an eighth ultradeepwater drillship.

The extension maintained substantially the same terms as the previous agreement with drillship delivery scheduled for first-quarter 2015.

Pacific Drilling currently operates four recently delivered drillships under customer contract and has three drillships under construction at Samsung, one of which is under customer contract.