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Houston Business Journal: 

Andrew Gould, chairman and CEO of Schlumberger, says his firm will speed up its ongoing review of North American land operations.
View Larger As the deepwater drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico sets in, companies are starting to assess the potential damage.

The 33 rigs affected by the 180-day ban charge day rates between $250,000 and $500,000 a day, adding up to somewhere in the conservative neighborhood of $10 million a day in losses.

"Thousands of workers are off the job, dozens of rigs will sit idle and companies now are invoking force majeure clauses to get out of drilling contracts," said Jason Itkin, co-founder of the Houston-based Arnold & Itkin LLP, which is representing plaintiffs in a number of lawsuits against BP Plc.

Houston Attorney Jason Itkin in HBJ article

Schlumberger Ltd. - which earned 3.5 percent of its consolidated 2009 revenue from U.S. Gulf waters, mainly from deepwater operations - said it expects to take a hit but should be fine considering its reach globally, where the effects of the 180-day moratorium will not be felt as much.

"While the major impact of this moratorium will be seen in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, we can assume that other worldwide operations will see some more limited effects," said Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Andrew Gould. "Operators and regulatory bodies around the world will proceed with greater caution until the causes of the Deepwater Horizon tragedy are better understood and we have already seen instances of this. However, while the drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico will present the deepwater industry with a challenging period, in the longer term deepwater production will remain an important source of future global oil supply."

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The Houston Business Journal is providing continuous coverage of the Gulf oil spill.

http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/stories/2010/06/07/daily50.html

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