ADES International Holding has secured a $92.7 million offshore drilling contract with Seplat Energy Producing Nigeria Unlimited, deploying the Shelf Drilling Victory rig for an initial two-year period with options for extension — a deal that pushes the company’s cumulative offshore contract value in Nigeria to approximately $843.5 million across 2025 and 2026, cementing Nigeria’s position as one of ADES’s most strategically important growth markets globally.
The contract, originally valued at 347.6 million Saudi riyals, encompasses mobilisation and start-up costs alongside the participation of a local Nigerian partner in line with domestic content requirements — a structure that reinforces both ADES’s regulatory compliance and its commitment to building durable on-the-ground presence in the West African market. ADES CEO Mohamed Farouk said the expansion into Nigeria reflects the company’s broader international growth ambitions and its strategic pivot toward high-potential offshore markets. He noted that the acquisition of Shelf Drilling has strengthened the company’s global platform and access to key clients, and that West Africa remains a priority region as demand for offshore drilling services continues to grow.
The Seplat deal is the latest in a rapid sequence of Nigerian contract wins that has transformed ADES’s footprint on the continent in less than two years. The company entered Nigeria in 2025 through a $21.8 million drilling and completion contract with Brittania-U Nigeria Limited, deploying the Admarine 504 jack-up rig to drill six wells over one year. By March 2026, it had scaled dramatically, securing a contract worth up to $729 million to deploy three jack-up rigs under Nigeria’s Offshore Fields Development Project — a deal awarded by a West African exploration entity linked to the Dangote Group that represented one of the largest single offshore drilling awards in the country’s recent history. The trajectory from $21.8 million to cumulative awards approaching $850 million in under two years is a measure of how rapidly ADES has built commercial credibility in a market that rewards demonstrated operational capability above all else.
Industry analysts say Nigeria’s offshore sector is attracting renewed investment as operators work to rebuild production momentum across both deepwater and shallow offshore assets — an environment that creates sustained demand for the kind of multi-rig, long-duration contracts at which ADES is increasingly specialising. For ADES, the Seplat contract reinforces Nigeria’s role as a core growth hub within its global portfolio and signals that the company’s West Africa strategy — built through deliberate escalation from small entry contracts to large-scale, multi-rig engagements — is delivering precisely the commercial scale it was designed to achieve.
Source: Angolan Mining Oil and Gas