RELATED PARTY TRANSACTIONS	12 Months Ended
RELATED PARTY TRANSACTIONS	Dec. 31, 2011
RELATED PARTY TRANSACTIONS [Abstract]
RELATED PARTY TRANSACTIONS	NOTE 13 – RELATED PARTY TRANSACTIONS A Rowan director serves as “of counsel” to, and his son is a partner in, a law firm that represents Rowan on certain matters and to which the Company paid approximately $0.5 million, $0.4 million, and $0.6 million for legal fees and expenses in 2011, 2010 and 2009, respectively. Another Rowan director served as managing director of an investment bank until his departure from the bank in March 2009. Rowan paid the investment bank $1.8 million in 2009 for services provided in connection with the Company's July 2009 Senior Note offering. In each case, the director's services were approved by the Company's Board of Directors, and compensation from his employer was not tied to amounts received from the Company. Rowan believes that the fees paid for services reflected market rates.

The entire disclosure for related party transactions, including the nature of the relationship(s), a description of the transactions, the amount of the transactions, the effects of any change in the method of establishing the terms of the transaction from the previous period, stated interest rate, expiration date, terms and manner of settlement per the agreement with the related party, and amounts due to or from related parties. If the entity and one or more other entities are under common ownership or management control and this control affects the operating results or financial position, disclosure includes the nature of the control relationship even if there are no transactions between the entities. Disclosure may also include the aggregate amount of current and deferred tax expense for each statement of earnings presented where the entity is a member of a group that files a consolidated tax return, the amount of any tax related balances due to or from affiliates as of the date of each statement of financial position presented, the principal provisions of the method by which the consolidated amount of current and deferred tax expense is allocated to the members of the group and the nature and effect of any changes in that method. Examples of related party transactions include transactions between (a) a parent company and its subsidiary; (b) subsidiaries of a common parent; (c) and entity and its principal owners; and (d) affiliates.

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+ Details