Drillers in trouble?

The turmoil in the finance markets is finally starting to effect the offshore sector:

• Nordea predicts finance difficulties for Sevan Marine

• Aban Offshore which had previously delayed the listing of its subsidiary Aban Singapore in Singapore, now plans to list the company in Norway

• MPF Corp. goes under
  

It's the weakest who take the first hit. Sevan has been building "experimental" bucket shaped drilling and floating production vessels on speculation. The company is not in serious trouble yet, but I expect things to get worse. Escalating contruction cost have been causing problems for MPF(Multi purpose floater) for quite awhile.

Aban bought Sinvests shallow water fleet with debt and now the costs of that debt are rising. Aban Singapore's assets are far from premium and I doubt that an IPO in Oslo is going to be very succesful.