Rowan Companies, a U.S. based drilling contractor, has been awarded a contract for its J.P. Bussell jack-up drilling rig.

In its March fleet update, Rowan said that the contract, with Petrofac in Malaysia, started earlier this month. The contract duration is 209 days, on a $143.000 day rate.

Elsewhere in the U.K. Talisman has decided to extend the contract for the Rowan Stavanger jack-up rig in the North Sea until September 2014, moving the,  previously scheduled 30 days out of service time to 4Q 2014 from 3Q 2014. Off rate time

Gorilla VI: Increased off rate time by 61 days during 2Q 2014 for additional repairs and testing that have been identified as the project nears completion. Rig is currently expected to return to service the end of June 2014.

Gorilla V: Increased off rate time by 12 days to 42 days during the end of 1Q and early 2Q 2014 for repairs and inspections. As previously scheduled, the rig is also expected to be off rate for seven days during 2Q 2014 for planned maintenance.Hank Boswell: Previously scheduled 28 days off rate time for inspections has been deferred to 1Q 2015 from 2Q 2014.

For the first quarter and full-year of 2014, the Company expects jack-up out of service time to be approximately 13% and 7-9%, respectively. The Company does not currently expect any out of service days in 2014 for the drillships, and following a break in period is expecting operational downtime to be approximately 5%.

Out-of-service days include days for which no revenues are recognized other than operational downtime and cold-stacked days.

The Company may be compensated for certain out-of-service days, such as for shipyard stays or for transit periods preceding a contract. However, recognition of any such compensation received is deferred and recognized over the period of drilling operations. Operational downtime is when a rig is under contract and unable to conduct planned operations due to equipment breakdowns or procedural failures. No operational downtime is included in projected out-of-service days, but the company estimates operational downtime to account for approximately 2.5% of in-service days in current and future quarters.