Turkey's oil firm Turkish Petroleum (TP) awarded Houston-based Rowan Companies a two-well contract in the Mediterranean Sea with an estimated duration of 100-140 days. The company's N-class jack-up rig Rowan Norway is expected to commence operations in late 2018. The Rowan Norway is currently warm-stacked in the U.K. sector of the North Sea.

In late May, Turkey's first drilling vessel, which was named after Istanbul's conqueror Ottoman Sultan Fatih Sultan Mehmet, sailed off to the Mediterranean to start the country's first deep-sea drilling operations.

The drilling vessel Fatih is equipped with cutting-edge technology and has a length of 229 meters (751 feet). It is capable of drilling to a maximum depth of 12,000 meters. The first drilling well will reach 2,600 meters in depth.

Rowan is a global provider of contract drilling services with a fleet of 27 mobile offshore drilling units composed of 23 self-elevating jack-up rigs and four ultra-deepwater drillships. The company's fleet operates worldwide, including in the U.S.' section of the Gulf of Mexico, the U.K., the Norwegian sectors of the North Sea, the Middle East, the Mediterranean Sea and Trinidad.

Additionally, the company is a 50/50 partner in a joint venture with Saudi Aramco in ARO Drilling, which owns a fleet of five self-elevating jack-up rigs that operate in the Arabian Gulf. Its Class-A Ordinary Shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).