Good day, and welcome to the Transocean New Build Update Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Rex May, Manager of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Olivia. Good morning, and welcome to Transocean's new build update conference call. We issued a press release earlier today, which is available on Transocean's website at deepwater.com. Additionally, we have posted on our website under the Investor Relations homepage a presentation that highlights the new build update. We will refer to these slides during our call.
Joining me on this morning's call are Jeremy Sigpen, President and Chief Executive Officer Mark May, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Keelan Addison, Executive Vice President and Chief Operations Officer and Roddy Mackenzie, Senior Vice President of Marketing Innovation and Industry Relations. During the course of this call, Transocean management may make certain forward looking statements regarding various matters related to our business and company that are not historical facts. Such statements are based upon current expectations and certain assumptions and are therefore subject to certain risks and uncertainties. Many factors could cause actual results to differ materially. Please refer to our SEC filings for our forward looking statements and for more information regarding certain risks and uncertainties that could impact our future results.
Please note that the company undertakes no duty to update or revise forward looking Following Jeremy's prepared comments, we will conduct a question and answer session. During this time, to give more participants an opportunity to speak on this call, please limit yourself to one initial question and one follow-up question. Thank you very much. I'll now turn
the call over to Jeremy. Thank you, Lux, and welcome, everyone. I'm extremely pleased to announce that Transocean has entered into multiple agreements related to our newbuild drillships, the Deepwater Atlas and Deepwater Titan, currently under construction at Sempore's Jurong shipyard in Singapore. As Lex mentioned, a brief slide deck containing some key information on the shipyard agreements is available on our website. The Deepwater Atlas and Deepwater Titan, both Jurong Espadon designed drillships will, without question, be the world's most capable offshore drilling rigs and the industry's first eighth generation drillships.
These assets are truly state of the art and that among other efficiency enhancing features, these are the only rigs in the world to feature a 3,000,000 pound hook load capacity, enabling our customers to achieve greater well construction efficiency and productivity by providing the ability to run larger, high pressure casing strings deeper, thereby facilitating the installation of larger wellbore production tubing strings that can maximize well production. In addition to their extraordinary and unique well construction capabilities, these two state of the art rigs are also designed and equipped to optimize fuel consumption, reduce emissions and drive down the associated carbon footprint of each well. The vessels are configured for high reliability closed bus operations allowing for fewer number of engines operating. Furthermore, the drill floors are equipped with hybrid energy storage systems to harvest and reuse spent energy from the hoisting system further reducing fuel consumption. Finally, these ships are also outfitted with selective catalytic reactors which can remove up to 95% of the NOx emissions from the engine exhaust delivering Tier three IMO compliance which is well above industry standard.
In combination, these features provide for meaningful reductions in fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, making the rigs amongst the most efficient in the world. This is great news for our customers and stakeholders alike by not only reducing the cost of producing oil and natural gas, but also driving down our carbon footprint through reduced emissions. This is yet another example of Transocean aligning with our customers' interest of providing reliable energy in the most responsible manner possible. As previously disclosed in our recent police status report, due to construction delays related to, among other things, the COVID-nineteen pandemic, the Atlas is now scheduled for delivery from the shipyard in December and the Titan is now scheduled for delivery in May 2022. We have entered into an agreement with Symcor whereby in exchange for certain changes in the construction agreement, we have waived our termination rights for late delivery and will take acceptance of each rig on the revised schedule.
Importantly, the revised agreement with Symcor provides liquidity enhancing payment terms for Transocean. Looking first at the Atlas, in exchange for accepting late delivery of the rig, we entered into a secured financing arrangement with Symcor. In summary, we will pay approximately $50,000,000 upon delivery. We will make quarterly payments beginning twelve months after delivery. The remaining 90% or approximately $370,000,000 of principal will amortize over the next five years at a very favorable interest rate of 4.5%.
A summary schedule of the new principal payment terms is provided in the slide deck. Of note, we entered into this arrangement because we believe that there will be considerable demand for this asset in the coming years, which we will discuss momentarily. But as it relates to the Atlas' initial contract, based on our almost daily conversations with Beacon, we believe that they remain fully committed to moving forward with the Shenandoah project and we expect them to make a final investment decision next month. Turning to the Titan. The Titan is now expected to be delivered in the 2022 and commence operations in the 2023.
As a reminder, the Chevron contract is for five years, includes a day rate of $455,000 per day and contributes $830,000,000 toward our backlog. It is important to note that these new agreements do not in any way impact the duration, day rate or backlog contribution of this contract. Upon delivery of the Titan in 2022, we will pay approximately $350,000,000 and will defer 20% or approximately $90,000,000 to be paid in installments over five years. In addition to this deferred payment arrangement, we still expect to approach the debt capital markets to raise approximately $350,000,000 in secured financing for the rig once it begins commercial operations for the customer in 2023. In aggregate, these agreements with the shipyard help improve our liquidity over the next eighteen months by over $450,000,000 Looking at Slide four, you can see that our expected liquidity at year end 2022 has increased and is now between $1,500,000,000 and $1,700,000,000 Turning to Slide five, you'll see a summary breakdown of the new payment schedule to the shipyard for our newbuilds.
As discussed, the schedule assumes we will take delivery of the Atlas in December and the Titan in May 2022. For clarity, this schedule does not include any payments related to owner furnished equipment, including upgrades for 20,000 PSI well control systems or capitalized interest expense. As part of our agreement with the shipyard, we've also negotiated terms affording us greater financial flexibility in the unlikely event that either rig is delivered to us without an initial drilling contract. However, we feel this scenario is improbable as these eighth generation drill rigs will be the most sought after drillships for not only 20,000 PSI operations, but for 15,000 PSI work as well, thanks to the 3,000,000 pound hook load and robust energy efficient features. That being said, we remain encouraged by the growing list of prospects requiring 20 ks technology.
Over the past two years, we've witnessed several of our long term customers position themselves to be part of this new frontier. We believe our investment in these eighth generation drillships offers us yet another clear competitive advantage as these two rigs are currently the only rigs with this technology in hook load. In fact, started initial discussions with multiple IOCs and NOCs for 20,000 projects in the Gulf Of Mexico as our customers are eager to unlock high quality reserves in these challenging reservoirs. Now I'd like to take a moment to discuss some additional contracts we've recently won since our first quarter earnings conference call on fleet status report. As further evidence that we are entering an up cycle, the dual activity Discovery Inspiration was recently awarded a nine well contract at $215,000 per day.
This is an encouraging day rate as this campaign is for plug and abandonment work with a sixth gen ultra deepwater drillship in single activity mode, which again speaks to the strong track record of Transocean and the inspiration in the Gulf Of Mexico. Staying in the Gulf Of Mexico, an additional one well option was exercised for the Deepwater Invictus. Importantly, this option is priced at a day rate of $260,000 per day, another very positive market rate. And another important data point corroborating our observation that the Gulf Of Mexico is experiencing a surge in activity resulting in increased day rates for premium contractors with premium assets. Additionally, as you may recall, the Deepwater Skiros was named Total Energy's Rig of the Year last quarter.
I'm pleased to announce that this superior performance has led Total to exercise its three seventy day option on the rig. The Deepwater Skirros will now be on contract through the 2022. Finally, just this past week, the Transocean Spitsbergen had two one well options exercised by Equinor. The rig is now expected to be on contract through September 2022 with Equinor in Norway. These awards and extensions add almost $190,000,000 in contract backlog, providing us with additional visibility to future cash flows and additional support for our belief that we are solidly in recovery mode.
Indeed, in just over two weeks, we've received multiple LOAs from both IOCs and NOCs for new and incremental work we hope to firm up in the coming months. Thus, the pipeline for work looks strong and provides us with more confidence as we enter the up cycle. In conclusion, we are seeing multiple data points that confirm our belief that a full scale recovery in the deepwater market is taking hold, including multi year highs for utilization in all major offshore basins. Our customers are also taking note of this as evidenced by the increasing number of tenders and bids and more importantly the increasing number of contract awards. Exploration drilling is also starting to return, which is an important sign in all up cycles.
Currently, just over 40% of floater activity is associated with exploration work and this is continuing to trend upward thanks to favorable offshore economics and oil price stability. Recall that at its peak, exploration activity in the last cycle consumed approximately 60% of floater supply. Thus, we're very encouraged by the improving metrics. As we mentioned on our last call, we are seeing a tightening market across all regions and in particular in The U. S.
Gulf Of Mexico and now see only one available rig in this region by year end. We anticipate this market might be completely sold out of rigs as we enter 2022 with more jobs and available assets. Needless to say, are excited about the opportunities unfolding and look forward to providing more details as we progress through the remainder of this year. This concludes my prepared remarks and I'll now turn the call back over to Lex.
Thanks, Jeremy. Olivia, we're now ready to take questions. And as a reminder to the participants, please limit yourself to one initial question and one follow-up question.
Thank Our first question comes from Ian Macpherson with Simmons. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Good morning, Jeremy.
Good morning, Ian.
So the main question I had was that you've updated us with the new spending to the shipyard, but the rest of the spend for these two ships for the equipment and capitalized interest and rest, that's a considerable amount as well that's not addressed. So how should we think about or specifically model the cadence for the remaining spend that's not addressed by the shipyard agreement?
So Ian, this is Mark. I'll take that one. So I'm assuming you're asking about the timing of the payments for the 20,000 BOP, the Mob, the capitalized interest, etcetera, etcetera. Is that correct?
Yes. I'm really just trying to square today's guidance with the total newbuild spend that you put in the 10 Q, which had about $1,450,000,000 remaining through mainly this year and next year and a little bit into 2023?
Yes. So for the Atlas, you're going have the vast majority of that spent in the second half of this year. It will be another $147,000,000 in total for the Atlas in 2022 and then $41,000,000 on mainly BOP in 2023. For the Titan, you're going to have $19,000,000 spent actually $136,000,000 spent this year, dollars $614,000,000 next year and then $15,000,000 in 2023.
Got it. Okay. And then thanks, Mark. And then are you I assume just based on the tightness you've described in the Gulf Of Mexico evaluating work for these ships ahead of Beacon and Chevron between delivery and those contracts?
No, actually those contracts will be the first contracts that the rigs take. So they should go directly from the yard, do their mobilization and then start up with those customers.
Okay. Thanks, Roddie.
Thank you. We will now go to Thomas Johnson with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my question. First and foremost, obviously, congrats on positive announcement today. I guess, just to start off kind of this is clearly a pretty constructive outlook for $15,000 and higher work in the Gulf Of Mexico. So could you guys maybe just update us on your expectations for follow on work for the Atlas first and foremost?
And then in addition to that maybe incremental regions where we could start to see this type of work develop or incremental opportunities come up?
Yes, I'll take that one. So very interesting. Kind of we see the kind of the publicly announced 20 ks development everyone else sees. But we're in several discussions with customers on a direct basis for utilization of the Atlas when she finishes up with Beacon. So rather than disclose who those are, I can point out to you that there's approximately nine different operators that are engaged in 20 ks type developments in The U.
S. Gulf Of Mexico. We're talking to more than one of them around time on the Atlas when she becomes available. So we feel really positive about that not only from the fact that she'll be the only available 20 ks rig in that timeframe. But as Jeremy had pointed out in his comments, the 3,000,000 pound hook load which is actually a 3,400,000 pound hoisting system is truly unique in the world.
And we're seeing that there's a real push from certain operators to secure the highest hook load rigs available simply because it just gives them the ability to run these deeper casings in a larger size that really makes a difference to the production numbers on the back end of that. So I think in summary, we're very positive about the number of opportunities in The U. S. Gulf Of Mexico. Those that you read about, but also those that we have discussions about privately.
And then beyond that there are a few folks that believe areas in the world will start to open up to more and more 20 ks drilling as it gets proven here in The Gulf. And we're not specifically targeting anything overseas at the moment simply because we will we only have one available rig and of course there's multiple opportunities here. But we do think that the future is pretty bright for 20 ks in general.
Great. Thank you. And then I guess just my one follow-up there. You guys obviously mentioned the emission reduction technology that you're going to be deploying on these rigs. So could you just maybe talk about customer reception on some of these technology rollouts that you're doing to reduce emissions?
Maybe how you see that differentiating Transocean for Newark moving forward as well?
Yes, sure. I mean, think we're we've been on this kind of we would call it a green journey for some time. So as we look at how we deliver our service and we think about our responsibility in the world of doing that in an efficient manner, we work on a couple of different areas. So the first one that we work on is being as efficient as we possibly can in delivering the wells. So the benefit to that is obviously a lower well cost, but importantly lower resources deployed on the wells.
So for example, and the corresponding emissions created are reduced first and foremost by being more efficient at delivering the service. Now in addition to that, we've implemented many technologies over the past decade that work towards reduced fuel consumption. So there are a few there. We mentioned some of them by name, but we have several technologies that essentially allow us to run the engines on the rig at a more optimized load level that actually reduces that emissions makes them more efficient, But also some more recent technologies where we're able to operate in a closed bus system that allows you to reduce the number of engines that you run whilst also maintaining a higher degree of reliability of station keeping. So these advances in technology really are kind of like a win win win.
Not only do you reduce the costs of the well, but you reduce your carbon footprint and associated emissions and you increase the reliability of station keeping and keeping things moving as we progress the wells. So in terms of differentiation, we may not shout about it the loudest, but we certainly implemented more of these technologies than anybody else. We've taken the view that the biggest impact we can have rather than trying to do carbon offsets or investing in a tremendous amount of alternative energy. We believe our biggest impact can be to deliver our services and deliver those wells with the lowest possible carbon footprint and the lowest possible emissions.
Great. Thanks guys. That's all for
me. Thank you.
Thank you. With no further questions in queue, Mr. May, at this time, I will turn the conference back to you for any final remarks.
Thank you, Olivia. And thank you everyone for your participation on today's call. If you have further questions, please feel free to contact me. We look forward to talking with you again when we report our second quarter twenty twenty one results. Have a good day.
This concludes today's conference. Thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect.