Atwood Oceanics
American energy company

Atwood Oceanics, Inc. was an offshore drilling contractor headquartered in Houston, Texas. In October 2017, the company was acquired by Ensco plc.
The company owned and operated 4 ultra-deepwater drillships, 2 ultra-deepwater semisubmersibles (can drill in water up to 12,000' deep), 2 deepwater semisubmersibles, and 5 high-specification jackup rigs.
In fiscal 2015, 5 customers accounted for a total of 63% of revenues: Noble Energy, Royal Dutch Shell, Woodside Petroleum, Chevron Corporation, and Kosmos Energy.
In fiscal 2015, the company derived 76% of its revenue from its 6 deepwater drillships and semisubmersibles.
In fiscal 2015, 71% of the company's revenues were derived outside of the United States. The company derived more of its revenues in Australia than in any other country.
History
The company was founded in 1968 by John Atwood.
The company began operation by 1970.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Atwood Oceanics” is american energy company. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Atwood, Oceanics and American, not as a finished interpretation.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4818872. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2017, 2015, 1968 and 1970.
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This entry incorporates text from “Atwood Oceanics” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.