Transocean's Mothballing Gamble

September 19, 2016
Bloomberg: Mothballing the World's Fanciest Oil Rigs Is a Massive Gamble

And while the decision to idle a chunk of its fleet would seem logical enough given the collapse in oil drilling activity, Transocean is in truth taking an enormous, and unprecedented, risk. No one, it turns out, had ever shut off these ships before. In the two decades since the newest models hit the market, there never had really been a need to. And no one can tell you, with any certainty or precision, what will happen when they flip the switch back on.

What's the worst that could happen?



[Braedon Keller backs away from computers]

Programmer: There's no need for that. It's all very quiet. It's just internal switching.

Braedon Keller: Really? No one's ever switched off a scanner before.

[Scanner switched off]

Programmer: See? I told you. No fireworks.

[Fireworks]