Noble Corp, the US drilling company, has exercised an option to buy a second newbuild jack-up drilling rig from the PaxOcean Group.

The Robert Kuok-backed shipyard group has sold the Gusto MSC CJ46 design rig to the US-listed company for $83.75m.

PaxOcean will provide $53.6m in seller-finance at an interest rate 4.25%