Seadrill (SDRL)

Seadrill Limited (NYSE: SDRL) is an ultra-deepwater offshore drilling company operating a fleet of drillships and semisubmersibles across the globe — the US Gulf of Mexico, Brazil, Angola, and other key basins. The company's backstory is worth knowing: Seadrill went through Chapter 11 restructuring in 2021/2022, emerging with a significantly cleaned-up balance sheet, then grew its fleet through the 2022 acquisition of Aquadrill (an all-stock deal worth roughly $958 million).

2026 is a pivotal year for understanding where Seadrill sits in the industry. The global offshore drilling sector is consolidating aggressively — Transocean (RIG) just announced a $5.8 billion all-stock acquisition of Valaris in February 2026, creating a combined fleet of 73 rigs. This follows Noble Corporation's earlier absorption of Maersk Drilling and Diamond Offshore. The result: the offshore drilling market is now dominated by two giants — Transocean and Noble — while Seadrill remains the largest independent driller that has not yet been folded into either combination.

This isn't a new storyline. Back in October 2024, Bloomberg reported that Seadrill and Transocean were in merger talks — SDRL shares jumped roughly 10% on the news, and Stifel modeled a deal value of approximately $55 per share at the time. That deal never materialized — Transocean instead pursued Valaris. But the question of “will Seadrill stay independent, or eventually get absorbed too?” continues to shape how the market prices this stock today.

Leadership has also changed hands — Samir Ali was appointed President & CEO in March 2026, succeeding Simon Johnson, right before several major developments (debt refinancing, raised guidance) covered elsewhere in this report.

⚠️ Shariah Status: NON-COMPLIANT per Zoya's reference screening. This isn't unusual for the offshore drilling sector — businesses like this require enormous capital to build and operate rigs (each unit can cost hundreds of millions of dollars), so the capital structure typically relies heavily on interest-bearing debt/notes. In Seadrill's case, this includes a fresh $700 million bond issuance in 2026. This high reliance on interest-bearing debt and interest income is what causes it to fail standard Shariah compliance screens. Muslim investors seeking Shariah-compliant portfolios should avoid SDRL entirely or exclude it from any Shariah-screened allocation.

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