Keppel on the acquisition trail

Keppel Corp, the Singapore conglomerate, wants to add to its global network of shipyards which currently spans to as far as the Philippines, the Middle East and Brazil

The company had already been looking around and has singled out Qatar and the Middle East. The move towards acquisition is part of the company?s efforts to fight off competition. Keppel O&M commands about 60% of the global market for jackup rigs, and is expected to benefit from escalating global oil exploration.

But new shipyards like Dalian New Shipbuilding and Yenta Raffles Shipyard in China are seen as strong rivals for global expansion and last December, Keppel said it wanted to set up an Indonesian yard as the country opens up more areas to oil and gas exploration.

Earlier this week, Keppel announced that its Keppel FELS unit had secured contracts worth over S$990m from Denmark’s Maersk to build four jackup rigs. This is the largest series of jackup contracts that Keppel FELS has secured from a customer at any one time.