The rig grab continues. High oil prices and dwindling resources have put a rocket under the price of equipment and services providers and triggered a wave of consolidation. On Monday, the Chinese joined in: China Oilfield Services agreed to pay $2.5bn for the equity of Norway’s Awilco Offshore.

The 19 per cent premium to Friday’s close looks disciplined, but stretches to 42 per cent based on the undisturbed share price on May 29. It is higher still benchmarked against the start of the year, when talks kicked off. COSL is paying an enterprise value of 9.4 times next year’s forecast earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, on the rich side compared with some deals in the sector. However, several of the rigs do not come online until 2010, when the forecast EV/ebitda multiple falls back to seven times.