Seplat just handed Mohamed Farouk's ADES a $92.7 million contract. The Saudi driller now has more than $843 million staked on Nigeria

Mohamed Farouk entered Nigeria in 2025 with a $21.8 million contract and a rig. Eighteen months later, his company has staked more than $843 million on the market and is not slowing down.

ADES Holding Company, the Saudi Arabian drilling contractor Farouk leads as chief executive, has secured a two-year offshore drilling contract with Seplat Energy Producing Nigeria Unlimited valued at approximately SAR 347.6 million ($92.7 million) for the firm term, including mobilization and demobilization fees. The contract covers the operation of the Shelf Drilling Victory jackup rig, with operations expected to commence in the second half of 2026 following completion of the rig's current campaign in Nigerian waters. Two optional one-year extensions are included in the agreement. Local in-country support services will be delivered through ADES' domestic partner, Valiant Offshore, in line with Nigeria's local content requirements.

The Seplat contract is the third significant award ADES has secured in Nigeria in a compressed timeframe. The company entered the market in 2025 through a $21.8 million drilling and completion contract with Brittania-U Nigeria Limited, deploying the Admarine 504 jackup rig to drill six wells over one year. In March 2026, it landed a substantially larger commitment: a SAR 2.73 billion ($729 million) multi-rig contract with West African Exploration and Production Company, a subsidiary of the Dangote Group, covering three premium jackup rigs each with a firm three-year duration and optional two-year extensions. The Seplat deal brings cumulative Nigerian contract value to an estimated $843.5 million across 2025 and 2026.

Alongside the Seplat award, ADES separately secured a one-year extension, with a one-year unpriced option, on its Shelf Drilling Scepter jackup rig currently working for Chevron Nigeria. That extension adds approximately SAR 178 million ($47.5 million) to the company's backlog and begins directly after the rig's existing contract expires in July 2026.

Farouk has been consistent in how he frames Nigeria. "Nigeria continues to evolve as one of the highest demanding territories for jackups, and we continue to see increasing momentum in tendering activity, particularly for clients seeking long-term partnerships with internationally experienced operators such as ADES," he said. He described the multi-rig Dangote Group contract, signed in March, as a milestone for the company's West and Central African expansion strategy, and the Seplat deal as further validation of that direction.

The pace of commitment is significant in context. ADES completed the acquisition of Shelf Drilling, the Singapore-based jackup operator, in late 2024 for approximately $1.05 billion, adding 35 rigs and a global operational footprint to a company that had previously been concentrated in the Gulf Cooperation Council. Nigeria is where much of the post-acquisition commercial rationale is being proven. With Shelf Drilling rigs now deployed across four Nigerian contracts, Farouk is demonstrating that the acquisition's diversification thesis was not theoretical.

Nigeria's shallow offshore market is drawing renewed attention from international drilling contractors as operators push to accelerate output targets and global energy demand provides a supportive pricing environment. Day rates for premium jackup rigs in the region have moved higher, and tendering activity has picked up materially since early 2025. For ADES, the timing of its Nigerian entry is proving commercially sound. Seplat Energy, which operates across Nigeria's onshore and offshore fields, is one of the country's most active independent operators and provides the company with a second anchor client alongside the Dangote Group.

Operations on the Shelf Drilling Victory are set to begin in the second half of 2026. Farouk has not indicated where the next contract will come from. Given the pace of the past 18 months, the question is not whether there will be another. It is how large it will be.