New contracts for the North Sea

Esgian reports that new drilling contracts have been announced in the North Sea and West Africa in its Week 17 Rig Analytics Market Roundup.

Summary of the report

Contracts

Shelf Drilling (North Sea) has received an award letter from an unnamed operator, believed to be TotalEnergies, for the 120-metre jack-up Shelf Drilling Fortress for a campaign in the North Sea.

Noble 12,000 ft 7th generation drillship Noble Venturer has secured new contracts in West Africa with Trident Energy and Rhino Resources, which will follow the early completion of the drilling rig contract with Tullow Oil offshore Ghana.

Market sources indicate that the contract of the 100-meter jack-up Setty, owned by Egyptian Drilling, has been suspended by Saudi Aramco.

During the company’s Q1 2024 earnings call, executives at Saipem stated that three Saipem-managed jackups have been affected by Saudi Aramco’s recent series of contract suspensions.

Northern Ocean expects a short contract-free period for its heavy-duty semi-submersible (SS), the 7,500-foot Deepsea Bollsta, following the completion of its current job with Shell in Namibia.

Drilling activity and discoveries

The Norwegian Ocean Industry Authority (Havtil) has granted Equinor permission to use the 1,640-foot semisub Transocean Enabler for production drilling/completion and drilling of the exploration segment in the Johan Castberg field offshore Norway.

Shell has completed drilling Enigma-1X at PEL0039, the company’s sixth exploration well in its campaign offshore Namibia.

Equinor has completed an evaluation well (7324/7-4) from the Wisting discovery in the Barents Sea offshore Norway.

Galp has completed the first phase of its Mopane exploration campaign at PEL83 in Namibia’s Orange Basin, concluding the Mopane-1X well test activities.

Australian offshore energy regulator NOPSEMA has opened for comment Chevron’s proposed exploration drilling plans for two wells in the northern Carnarvon Basin off the northwest coast of Western Australia.

Rhino Resources has awarded Halliburton an integrated multi-well construction contract for the upcoming exploration drilling campaign on Block 2914A (PEL 85) in the Orange Basin offshore Namibia.

ExxonMobil is drilling the Trumpetfish-1 exploration well on the Stabroek block offshore Guyana with Stena Drilling’s 3,000-metre Stena Carron drillship.

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The Ministère du Petroleum, de l’Energie et des Mines of Mauritania has signed an exploration and production contract with the Taqa Arabia / Go Gas consortium for the exploitation of natural gas reserves in the offshore Banda & Tevet fields.

Mobilization/harness movements

The Petroserv-operated 10,000-foot semisub SSV Catarina left the Batu Ampar anchorage on Friday, April 19 and is now en route to Vietnam.

Valaris’ 120-metre jack-up platform, Valaris 123, has been mobilized from Dundee, Scotland, to the UK sector of the North Sea for a contract with Ithaca Energy.

Stena Drilling The 3,000-metre drillship Stena DrillMAX has begun its mobilization from Guyana to Canada, where the drilling rig will continue to operate for ExxonMobil.

Noble’s 350-foot CJ50 jackup, the Noble Resilient, has been mobilized from a port in Denmark to the Danish sector of the North Sea for a new contract with Wintershall Noordzee.

The 375-ft jack-up Admarine 691, owned by Advanced Drilling Services (ADES), will be towed to Ras Tanura in Saudi Arabia, where it will remain for a few weeks.

The 3,600-meter semi-submersible Olinda Star is mobilizing from Indian waters to Trincomalee, Sri. Lanka.

The 270-ft jack-up High Island IV, owned by Shelf Drilling, has begun moving to its new drilling site in the Persian Gulf to continue its contract with Saudi Aramco.

After more than a month at anchor in Labuan, Noble Corporation’s 120-meter jack-up Noble Tom Prosser has left the anchorage.

Other news

Odfjell Drilling’s 3,000-metre submersible Deepsea Atlantic will enter the yard in mid-2024 for a planned Special Periodic Survey (SPS).

TotalEnergies has signed an agreement with Sapura Upstream Assets Sdn Bhd (SUA) to acquire its 50% stake in Malaysian independent gas producer and operator SapuraOMV Upstream Sdn (SapuraOMV) for $530 million, subject to closing adjustments. Closure is expected in the second half of 2024.

Saipem Group reported offshore drilling revenues of €210 million for the first quarter of 2024, an increase of 16.7% compared to the first quarter of 2023. First quarter adjusted EBITDA for this business segment was €80 million.

MedcoEnergi has sold its entire share capital of Ophir Vietnam Block 12W BV (OVBV) to Bitexco Energy Company Limited. OVBV has a 31.875% stake in Chim Sao and Dua (“Block 12W”), the producing oil and gas field in Vietnam.

Ithaca Energy and Eni have entered into an agreement under which Eni will combine its UK upstream assets with Ithaca Energy.

Serica Energy has made a final investment decision (FID) on the development of Belinda, located in permit P1792 in the central North Sea.

TotalEnergies and Trident Energy have announced transactions involving part of their interests in offshore oil fields in the Republic of Congo.

A final investment decision (FID) for the NEO Energy-operated Buchan Horst project in the UK North Sea, which is not expected before the second half of 2024, depends in part on the impact on the project economics of expectations for the future tax regime. will apply for the duration of the project. This is what Serica Energy, one of the partners in the project, says.

Sintana Energy Inc. has entered into a definitive agreement giving it an interest in Petroleum Exploration License 79 (PEL 79) in the Orange Basin off the coast of Nambia. PEL 79 includes blocks 2815 and 2915 and is currently operated by state oil company NAMCOR with a 67% stake.

The government of Angola has approved Afentra’s acquisition of a 12% non-operated stake in Block 3/05 and a 16% non-operated stake in Block 3/05A from Azule Energy. Afentra and Azule aim to complete the acquisition in the second quarter of 2024.

Woodside Energy has exited the Carlisle Bay block off the coast of Barbados.