China Oilfield Services to spend on deepwater drilling

China Oilfield Services (COSL) plans to spend US$427.6 million on developing its deepwater drilling capacity over the next three years, the South China Morning Post reported. The firm’s CEO Yuan Guangyu said this would include the construction of two working vessels and one seismic vessel. This is in addition to two special ships already ordered from Rolls Royce at a cost of US$100 million. Yuan added that COSL would continue to look for acquisition opportunities overseas, despite setbacks in Indonesia and Russia in the past two years. The announcement came one day after the firm reported a 98.3% year-on-year jump in net profit to US$460.5 million in 2007.