Shelf Drilling is a shallow-water drilling contractor that owns and operates jack-up rigs for national and international oil companies, and it concentrates on jack-up work rather than a mixed fleet of floaters and shallow-water units. Its head office is One JLT, Floor 12, Jumeirah Lakes Towers, Dubai, and it is a wholly owned subsidiary of ADES Holding Company; its shares are no longer publicly traded. The business was established on 30 November 2012, when it acquired 37 jack-up rigs and one swamp barge from Transocean.

How the company was assembled

Shelf Drilling's own milestone list dates the transfer of most of its rigs to its operational control to December 2013. In 2014 it signed five-year contracts with Chevron in Thailand for two newbuild jack-ups and contracts covering several rigs in the Arabian Gulf with Saudi Aramco; operations in the United Arab Emirates began in June 2015 with NDC, giving the company ten rigs in the Gulf at that point. The first newbuild, Shelf Drilling Chaophraya, started its Chevron Thailand contract in December 2016, followed by Shelf Drilling Krathong in June 2017. The company listed on Oslo Børs in June 2018 and redeemed its preferred equity in the same month. In March 2021 it issued USD 310 million of new senior notes, in May 2021 it won a ten-year extension from Saudi Aramco for the rig High Island IX, and in 2022 it added five premium jack-ups and the unit renamed Shelf Drilling Victory.

The rig fleet and its classes

The fleet page lists 35 jack-up rigs, split across five regional groups: India, MENAM (Middle East, North Africa and Mediterranean), Southeast Asia, West Africa and the North Sea. The rigs cover several generations of jack-up design, with maximum drilling depths from 20,000 to 35,000 feet, maximum water depths from roughly 250 to 500 feet and accommodation for between 92 and 160 people.

  • MLT 116C and MLT 82-SD-C units, including Adriatic I, Compact Driller, Key Manhattan, Key Singapore, Ron Tappmeyer, High Island II, IV, V and IX and Rig 141
  • Friede & Goldman JU-3000N and JU-2000E rigs, including Shelf Drilling Fortress, Odyssey, Perseverance and Winner
  • LeTourneau Super 116E jack-ups, including Shelf Drilling Chaophraya, Krathong, Mentor and Resourceful
  • Baker Marine Pacific 375 units Shelf Drilling Enterprise, Tenacious and Victory
  • One Keppel FELS Super B class rig, Shelf Drilling Scepter, and the GustoMSC CJ46-X100-D rig Shelf Drilling Achiever
  • The harsh-environment GustoMSC CJ70-X150-ST jack-up Shelf Drilling Barsk, rated to 150 metres of water and 10,000 metres of drilling depth
  • Older units including Parameswara and Trident XII (BMC 300 IC), Trident II (MLT 84-SC) and Trident 16 (Modec 300 C38)

Regions and customers

India is a long-standing market: the fleet list shows C.E. Thornton, Compact Driller, F.G. McClintock, J.T. Angel, Key Singapore, Ron Tappmeyer and Trident II working for ONGC there. In the MENAM group, Saudi Aramco operates High Island IV, V and IX and Harvey H. Ward, ENI has Key Manhattan and Shelf Drilling Resourceful in Italy, Petrobel works with Trident 16 in Egypt, PetroGulf holds Rig 141 and QatarEnergy LNG is listed as the customer for a rig in Qatar. Southeast Asia centres on Chevron in Thailand with Shelf Drilling Chaophraya and Krathong, and on Vietnam, where Shelf Drilling Enterprise and Shelf Drilling Perseverance serve undisclosed operators and PVEP POC. West Africa includes Chevron Nigeria, which contracts Shelf Drilling Scepter, and CABGOC in Angola, which has Shelf Drilling Tenacious; several Nigerian units are listed with undisclosed customers. In the North Sea, Equinor contracts the CJ70 rig Shelf Drilling Barsk in Norway, Shelf Drilling Fortress works in the United Kingdom and Shelf Drilling Winner is in the Netherlands for Tenaz Energy.

Contract cover and group scale

Shelf Drilling's rigs are contracted across those five regional groups, and awards booked during the first half of 2026 extended the coverage. They included an extension for Shelf Drilling Scepter with Chevron in Nigeria, a multi-year award for Shelf Drilling Enterprise in Thailand, a two-year firm contract for Shelf Drilling Victory in Nigeria, a one-year contract for Main Pass IV with a one-year unpriced extension option and an extension for Shelf Drilling Winner in the Netherlands. Two further awards followed: Shelf Drilling Odyssey took a two-year firm contract with Seplat in Nigeria plus two unpriced one-year options, and Shelf Drilling Fortress won United Kingdom North Sea work covering two firm wells with a minimum duration of 550 days and two optional extensions of at least 275 days each, a package with a potential value of about SAR 483 million. Parent company ADES Holding reported revenue of SAR 4,544.1 million for the six months to 30 June 2026, a group EBITDA margin of 47.6% and total backlog of SAR 34.67 billion, with a weighted average remaining contract tenor of 4.54 years.

Standards and contact

Shelf Drilling publishes health, safety and environment policies, a sustainability section and a code of business conduct, and it maintains a bondholder area for holders of its listed debt. General enquiries go to [email protected] and rig availability is handled through [email protected]; the head office is contactable on +971 4 567 3400, and job seekers register a profile and submit a CV through the careers portal. The company states its operating vision as being the international jack-up contractor of choice with a sole focus on shallow-water drilling.