Noble Corp. Files Chapter 11 to Slash $4B in Debt

Offshore drilling contractor Noble Corp., which experienced been battling with minimized demand amid plunging oil costs, has submitted for personal bankruptcy with a system to slash its $four billion credit card debt load.

The Chapter 11 filing on Friday came two weeks following Noble skipped a $15 million fascination payment and stated it was in talks with its collectors about a restructuring offer.

“Noble enters chapter 11 with the sturdy assist of its collectors, owning executed a restructuring assist agreement” that “provides for a massive deleveraging of Noble’s funds structure devoid of impairing trade collectors,” CFO Richard Barker stated in a court declaration.

The system would decrease Noble’s credit card debt load — all of which is unsecured — to significantly less than $450 million, with $three billion in credit card debt currently being converted to fairness.

“The elementary problem that Noble faces is that its fully unsecured funds structure was designed for a very different offshore current market setting, where by exercise degrees and drilling dayrates were large more than enough to assist the sizeable funds that experienced been deployed to expand and improve its fleet in reaction to the current market demand in this structurally different current market,” Barker stated.

“Today, Noble is merely unable to crank out enough earnings to assist its recent funds structure,” he additional.

Noble presently operates a fleet of 24 rigs all around the globe, serving consumers like Royal Dutch Shell, ExxonMobil, Equinor ASA, and Saudi Arabian Oil Co.

In 2019, it shed $734.9 million on revenue of $1.31 billion, reflecting a sizeable fall in demand for oil rigs as producers cut funds investing merged with an oversupply of rigs. Its shates experienced plunged eighty four% for the year by Thursday’s closing.

“For Noble, the progress of COVID-19 into a world wide pandemic erased any question as to no matter whether Noble would be in a position to steer clear of personal bankruptcy,” Barker stated, noting demand for oil has declined drastically owing to social distancing, minimized vacation, and remote function guidelines.

Noble is the next main offshore driller to file for personal bankruptcy this year, next Diamond Offshore Drilling in April. A further driller, Valaris, warned final week that Chapter 11 personal bankruptcy was “imminent.”

(Photo by JACK GUEZ/AFP by using Getty Photographs)

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