Bermuda-based Seadrill Ltd. expects to buy the remaining 60 percent of Scorpion Offshore Ltd. that it does not already own, as the company looks to new acquisitions to boost its presence in the US waters in the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere.

Seadrill CEO Alf Thorkildsen said the company, which owns 40 offshore drilling units, was focusing on the deepwater business after having grown to a $10 billion concern from $200 million in the past five years.

"Deepwater is our key market and of course we're looking at how to grow that part of the business," he said in an interview at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

"We'll look at selective assets and other opportunities."

Mr. Thorkildsen said that Seadrill plans to take full control of Texas-based Scorpion Offshore in the next couple of months after having increased its stake to more than 40 percent earlier this week. Scorpion operates jack-up rigs for use in shallow waters in Brazil, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Arabian Gulf and Trinidad

Seadrill will now focus on deepwater opportunities in what Mr. Thorkildsen described as the "golden triangle" - namely, the Gulf of Mexico, Brazil and West Africa.

Mr. Thorkildsen said that prices charged for oil services were improving after lower day rates during the depths of the global recession of the past 18 months.

"We now see some firming up, particularly in the jack-up rig market but also to some extent other markets," he said.

Analysts at Tudor Pickering Holt, a Houston-based energy research firm, said Seadrill will demand attention from US investors after its NYSE listing by virtue of its hefty size and market presence in oil services.

Seadrill's nine percent yield "may attract some current Diamond Offshore owners", Tudor Picking Holt said.

"Seadrill loves to buy/sell/trade, so expect offshore driller merger and acquisition rumor mill to have fun with Seadrill now that they have US currency," analysts at Tudor Pickering wrote.

Thorkildsen joined Seadrill as CEO in 2008 after working as chief financial officer of Smedvig, a company Seadrill bought two years earlier.

He worked more than 20 years for Royal Dutch Shell and holds a MBA from Arizona State University. Last week, Seadrill named Esa Ikaheimonen, a former Royal Dutch Shell executive, as chief financial officer.

The NYSE listing comes amid a flurry of activity from Oslo-based Seadrill, founded by billionaire John Fredriksen, who also controls Frontline Ltd.

Ranked No. 132 on the Forbes list of the world's billionaires with $4 billion in net worth, Mr. Fredriksen made the bulk of his fortune during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.

Currently, he is affiliated with several listed companies, including Golar LNG Ltd. and Frontline. He is also a director of Bermuda-based Golden Ocean Group Ltd., which is traded on the Oslo Stock Exchange

Yesterday, Sembcorp Marine said its shipyard unit signed a letter of intent with Seadrill for the sale of a harsh-environment CJ70 jack-up drilling rig. The rig was originally contracted for construction for Petroprod Ltd., which went into liquidation last year.

On Wednesday, Seadrill said it won a five-year, $650 million contract with StatoilHydro for a jack-up drilling rig for the Norwegian continental shelf. Start-up is scheduled for the third quarter of 2011.