Esgian Week 17 Report: 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.
Report Summary
Contracts
Shelf Drilling (North Sea) has secured a letter of award with an unnamed operator, believed to be TotalEnergies, for the 400-ft jackup 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 rig’s contract with Tullow Oil offshore Ghana.
Market sources indicate that the 375-ft jackup Setty, owned by Egyptian Drilling, has had its contract suspended by Saudi Aramco.
Speaking during the company’s Q1 2024 results 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 off-contract period for its harsh-environment (HE) semisubmersible (SS), the 7,500-ft Deepsea Bollsta, following the completion of its current job with Shell in Namibia.
Drilling Activity and Discoveries
The Norwegian Ocean Industry Authority (Havtil) has given Equinor consent to use the 1,640-ft semisub Transocean Enabler for production drilling/completion and drilling of the exploration segment at the Johan Castberg field offshore Norway.
Shell has concluded drilling Enigma-1X on PEL0039, the company’s sixth exploration well in its campaign offshore Namibia.
Equinor has completed an appraisal well (7324/7-4) on the Wisting discovery in the Barents Sea off Norway.
Galp has completed the first phase of its Mopane exploration campaign on PEL83 in Namibia’s Orange Basin, concluding its Mopane-1X well testing operations.
Australian offshore energy regulator NOPSEMA has opened for comments 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 its 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 10,000-ft drillship Stena Carron.
Demand
Mauritania’s Ministère du Pétrole, de l'Energie et des Mines 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.
Mobilisation/Rig Moves
Petroserv-managed 10,000-ft semisub SSV Catarina left the Batu Ampar anchorage on Friday, 19 April, and is now en route to Vietnam.
Valaris’ 400-ft harsh-environment jackup rig, Valaris 123, has mobilised from Dundee, Scotland to the UK sector of the North Sea for a contract with Ithaca Energy.
Stena Drilling 10,000-ft drillship Stena DrillMAX has begun its mobilisation from Guyana to Canada, where the rig will continue to work for ExxonMobil.
Noble’s 350-ft CJ50 jackup, the Noble Resilient, has mobilised from a port in Denmark to the Danish sector of the North Sea for a new contract with Wintershall Noordzee.
Advanced Drilling Services (ADES)-owned 375-ft jackup Admarine 691 is being towed to Ras Tanura in Saudi Arabia, where it will stay for a few weeks.
Constellation 3,600-ft semisubmersible Olinda Star is mobilising from Indian waters to Trincomalee, Sri. Lanka.
Shelf Drilling-owned 270-ft jackup High Island IV has started moving towards its new drilling location in the Persian Gulf to continue its contract with Saudi Aramco.
After spending more than a month at anchor in Labuan, Noble Corporation's 400-ft jackup Noble Tom Prosser has left the anchorage.
Other News
Odfjell Drilling 10,000-ft semisubmersible Deepsea Atlantic will go into 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% interest in Malaysian independent gas producer and operator SapuraOMV Upstream Sdn (SapuraOMV) for $530 million, subject to closing adjustments. Closing is expected in the second half of 2024.
Saipem Group reported offshore drilling revenue of €210 million for the first quarter of 2024, an increase of 16.7% from the first quarter of 2023. Adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter for this business segment was €80 million.
MedcoEnergi has divested its entire share capital of Ophir Vietnam Block 12W B.V. (OVBV) to Bitexco Energy Company Limited. OVBV holds a 31.875% participating interest in Chim Sao and Dua (“Block 12W”), the producing oil and gas field located 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 taken a final investment decision (FID) on the Belinda development, located in licence P1792 in the Central North Sea.
TotalEnergies and Trident Energy have announced transactions concerning some of their offshore oilfield asset stakes 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 latter part of 2024, depends in part on the impact on project economics of expectations for the future tax regime which will apply through the life of the project. This is according to Serica Energy, one of the partners in the project.
Sintana Energy Inc. has entered into a definitive agreement which will grant it an interest in Petroleum Exploration License 79 (PEL 79) in the Orange Basin offshore Nambia. PEL 79 includes blocks 2815 and 2915 and is currently operated by state oil company NAMCOR with a 67% interest.
The Government of Angola has approved Afentra’s acquisition of a 12% non-operated interest in Block 3/05 and a 16% non-operated interest 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 offshore Barbados.