In dispute: Ensco and PDVSA over payment of the Ensco 69 charter
Ensco claims $35.5m owed by PDVSA
Oil services company Ensco said Venezuela owes it $35.5 million for drilling work, a day after Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA said it took over an Ensco rig in a payment flap.
Ensco said PDVSA subsidiary Petrosucre was temporarily operating the Ensco 69 jackup drilling rig under supervision of Ensco personnel and that the company has been advised it is free to terminate the contract and remove the rig.
"When Petrosucre failed to honor recent commitments to pay past due amounts, Ensco suspended drilling operations upon completion of the well in progress," Ensco said in a statement.
Ensco is still negotiating a mutually satisfactory agreement, the statement said, without specifying how long the rig would continue current operations.
PDVSA said on Tuesday it expected to finish the current well in mid-February.
PDVSA faces growing complaints from contractors and service providers of unpaid bills amid a tumble in oil prices that has pinched the finances of the company, which also bankrolls President Hugo Chavez's social programmes.
Petrosucre is a joint venture between PDVSA and Italy's Eni that originally included investment from ConocoPhillips , which left Venezuela in 2007 following a nationalization drive by the Chavez government.
Chevron contracted another Ensco rig for a gas project off the coast of western Venezuela, a company official said. It was not clear if the current dispute would affect that contract or other Ensco business in Venezuela.
A PDVSA spokesman said he could not immediately comment.
Ensco said it started the contract with Petrosucre in August 2008, and that the rig was insured for $65 million.
"The contract calls for a two-year term at a day rate in the mid- $180,000 range," Ensco said.
Separately US oil driller Helmerich & Payne said today that PDVSA owed it nearly $100 million and that it had begun to idle drilling rigs there.
So far, two of Helmerich & Payne's 11 rigs in the Opec member's oil fields have ceased operations, and that number would rise to five by the end of February as the current work contracts expire.