New rigs from old

Ades chief executive Mohamed Farouk reveals his firm’s formula for offering oil companies rigs at lower-than-market rates

Every dark cloud, they say, has a silver lining. As the global oil industry languished after the post-2014 price collapse, one Egyptian oilfield services company was lucky enough to discover that proverbial precious-metal lining. Advanced Energy Systems (Ades) was well-placed to cash in on the misery that oil firms around the world were enduring. For the company's business model is to buy up and refurbish legacy rigs before leasing them at a low cost to oil and gas operators. "The oil-price crash affected us in a positive manner," Mohamed Farouk, Ades' chief executive, told Petroleum Economist. "We found a lot of good assets to acquire, that companies couldn't afford to keep." It was a favou