Rig Contract News

Esgian provides an update on new jack-up contracts in the North Sea and Nigeria in its Week 33 Rig Analytics Market Roundup.Report SummaryContractsBorr Drilling 400-ft jackup Prospector 1 has secured a contract extension with ONE-Dyas for work offshore the UK and the Netherlands, scheduled to run from February to April 2025.Shelf Drilling 300-ft jackup Harvey H. Ward has received a notice of suspension from Saudi Aramco for up to one year.Shelf Drilling 350-ft jackup Shelf Drilling…

Esgian provides an update on Saudi suspensions in its Week 20 Rig Analytics Market Roundup.Report SummaryContractsDrilling contractor Arabian Drilling confirmed that the suspension of three contracts for its jackups with Saudi Aramco have yet to be finalised but are expected to take effect towards the end of the third quarter of 2024. CEO Ghassan Mirdad stated that the company is actively exploring opportunities to redeploy these rigs with other clients. Arabian Drilling announced…

Esgian reports rig-related updates from Dolphin Drilling, Diamond Offshore, and Seadrill in its Week 9 Rig Analytics Market Roundup.Report Outline:ContractsDespite Tullow Oil’s recent announcement that it would take a break from drilling offshore Ghana, Noble Corp. has stated that there has been no contract termination announcement and that its 12,000-ft drillship Noble Venturer is currently still contracted to Tullow into March 2025.Masirah Oil Ltd has signed a rig contract with…

Esgian has published its Week 49 Rig Market Roundup highlighting new drilling activity in the North Sea and a new licensing deal in Morocco.Drilling Activity and DiscoveriesSerica Energy is continuing with plans for its four-well drilling campaign in the UK North Sea, scheduled for 2024 and early 2025. The campaign will be carried out using the semisubmersible COSLInnovator. All four wells are production wells. The first well in the campaign will be a sidetrack of an existing well (B1z) on the Bittern field.

Valaris, the world's largest offshore drilling company by fleet size, is set to lose one of the most lucrative contracts in the offshore drilling industry today after it recently accidentally dropped a blowout preventer stack to seabed offshore Angola.The contract, at a day rate of $620,000 per day, is with the French oil major Total for the drillship Valaris DS-8. The Samsung GF12000 designed drilling rig has been drilling for Total since 2015.As previously reported, Valaris earlier in March said it had accidentally dropped Blowout Preventer Stack to the seafloor of Angola, while the rig was moving between well locations. It then warned the customer might seek to terminate the contract as a result of the incident.In an update on Thursday…

Australia exploration company Karoon Energy has signed an agreement with the drilling contractor Stena Drilling and oil company Tullow Oil to contract the Stena Forth drillship for Karoon’s Marina-1 exploration well located offshore Peru."The Stena Forth has been contracted to drill one well, being the Marina-1 exploration well, in Karoon’s 40% owned and operated Block Z-38 in the Tumbes Basin in Peru with drilling scheduled to commence early in the 1st quarter 2020," said a press release from Karoon.The Marina-1 well sits in water depth of approximately 350 metres and is targeting a gross prospective resource of 256 million barrels (102 million barrels net to Karoon).In the case of success in Marina-1…

UK-based Reabold Resources said Rathlin Energy UK Ltd has signed a rig contract for the onshore UK West Newton appraisal well.The appraisal well at West Newton will have two objectives. The first objective is to appraise the Kirkham Abbey Formation gas discovery which has a 72 per cent. chance of success and an NPV of $185m.The second objective of the well is to test a deeper Cadeby Formation reef flank oil prospect, considered by Rathlin to have an NPV of $850m and a 24 per cent. chance of success.In line with Reabold's investment strategy, West Newton, in a success case, offers a fast pathway to monetisation through its proximity to existing gas pipelines and infrastructure.In 2017…

Maersk Drilling signed on semi-submersible rig Mærsk Deliverer with Eni for exploration well offshore Timor-Leste.Maersk Drilling and Eni JDPA 11-106 B.V. (Eni) as operator of the JPDA 11-106 Joint Venture have signed a one-well contract for the semi-submersible rig Mærsk Deliverer for exploration drilling in the Timor Sea.The estimated duration of the firm contract is two months, expected to commence in March 2019. The contract contains an option for an additional well with an expected duration of an additional two months.The Mærsk Deliverer is currently warm-stacked in Labuan, Malaysia, after completing a well programme in March 2018.

Maersk Drilling and Aker BP have signed a one-year contract to deploy the Maersk Integrator jack-up rig off Norway from June 2019, Aker BP said in a statement on Thursday.The contract, based on an alliance created between the two firms and Halliburton in 2017, is based on market-rate terms and holds the possibility of a sizeable upside for all parties, based on actual delivery and performance, it said.Maersk Integrator will finish its current campaign on the Gina Krog field off Norway in June 2019, and then go directly to the Ula field in the North Sea for a new one-year assignment with Aker B

Equinor has awarded Odfjell a contract for drilling two times three production wells for the Fram and Askeladd licences by using the Deepsea Atlantic rig. Odfjell has also been awarded a master framework agreement (MFA). Equinor has signed a framework agreement with Odfjell with terms that will be used for future rig contracts with Odfjell on the Norwegian continental shelf. At the same time, the first rig contract has been signed for Deepsea Atlantic under this contract format. “We have reached a long-term agreement with standard terms that will ensure more efficient procurement processes for future assignments with Odfjell. In addition…

Sound Energy, the African and European focused upstream gas company, announced on 29 November 2016, that the terms of the contract for the use of Pergemine S.p.A ("Pergemine")  3000 HP EMSCO C3 rig for the drilling of the Badile exploration well (the "Rig"), provided that payment of 23% of the service charges due to Pergemine would be settled through the issue of new ordinary shares in the Company ("Ordinary Shares") with a value of approximately Euro 1 million. Following the mobilisation of the Rig in January 2017, the Company announces that it has [today] issued an initial 830,565 new Ordinary Shares to Pergemine which, at the closing mid-market price per Ordinary Share on 7 February 2017 of 82.0 pence, had a market value of approximately £680,000 (approximately Euro 790,000).

Hurricane Energy, the UK-based oil and gas company focused on hydrocarbon resources in naturally fractured basement reservoirs, announces that, further to the rig contract amendments entered into with Transocean, the Company exercised its option over the Transocean Spitsbergen drilling rig on 25 November 2016 in order to drill the Halifax prospect. The Halifax well will be drilled after completion of the Lincoln well. A further announcement will be made once the Halifax well has been spudded.

Norway’s Statoil ASA  has decided to end its contract with a drilling rig operated by China Oilfield Services Limited, or COSL, three months after a worker died when the rig was hit by a wave during a storm in the North Sea. “The conditions for terminating the contract signed with COSL Offshore Management AS have in our opinion been met, and we therefore choose to use our contractual right to terminate the contract,” says Geir Tungesvik, Statoil’s senior vice president for drilling and well. In addition Statoil has decided to stop drilling operation with the sister rig COSLPromoter when it is safe to discontinue well operations. This is done in order to enable COSL to implement the necessary actions in order to fulfil the requirements of the contract.

Norwegian firm Statoil ASA is ending its rig contract for the Maersk Gallant six months early. The jack up rig has been on contract with Statoil for two years, since 21 August 2014, and since 9 October it has been sub-chartered to ConocoPhillips. "Between 14 February and 21 August 2016 the Maersk Gallant is on a new contract with Total E&P Norge AS, who will pay cancellation fee according to the former contract," says a press statement from Statoil. In January, Total received consent from the Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA) of Norway, to drill the North Sea exploration well 1/5-5 in PL 618 using Maersk Gallant. The jack-up Gallant was last listed as operating in the North Sea. No information was given on the day rate or other terms for the lease.

Two of the major British players in Falkland Islands offshore oil development, Premier Oil and Rockhopper Exploration, cancelled a joint venture contract with Ocean Rig UDW. In June 2014, the companies entered into a contract with Ocean Rig for the provision of the Eirik Raude for an exploration drilling campaign in the Falkland Islands. However, following a number of material "operational issues" with the rig, Premier and Noble Energy issued a termination notice to Ocean Rig on Thursday, terminating the contract with immediate effect. "As a result, Premier will no longer be drilling the Chatham exploration well during the current campaign.

Marco Polo Marine has unilaterally terminated a rig building order worth US$214.3 million from a subsidiary of Sembcorp Marine. Sembcorp Marine on early Wednesday morning said its subsidiary, PPL Shipyard, will regard the termination by Marco Polo Drilling (I) of the US$214.3 million newbuild contract as "repudiatory breach of the contract". The response comes after Marco Polo Marine, of which Marco Polo Drilling is an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary, on Tuesday said in a filing to the Singapore Exchange that it will terminate the contract for a jack-up rig under construction at PPL Shipyard. Sembcorp Marine refers to the announcement by Marco Polo Marine Ltd in respect of the termination by Marco Polo Drilling (I) Pte. Ltd.

Statoil has decided to cancel the contract with Songa Trym, four months before the expiration of contract on 4 March 2016. Statoil has previously notified Songa Offshore that the rig would be suspended for a period, and Statoil has tried to find other assignments for the rig after the suspension period and up to the expiration of contract. “We informed the supplier earlier in October about suspending the contract after the rig has completed the drilling operation on the Tavros well on the Visund field. Statoil has hoped for further activity in the remaining contract period, but we now realize that we must cancel the contract, as we have not succeeded in finding more assignments.

North Atlantic Drilling has been awarded a contract extension for the semi-submersible rig West Phoenix by Total E&P UK Limited. The contract will commence mid-March 2016 and secure work for the unit through the end of August 2016. The total revenue potential for the contract extension is approximately $62 million. "A portion of the $62 million will be paid during the currently anticipated idle period from the beginning of September 2015 to the middle of March 2016. The Company has the ability to market the rig for alternate work during this period," North Atlantic Drilling said in the press release. As part of the agreement to extend the West Phoenix…

Statoil, on behalf of the Johan Sverdrup licence, has awarded two contracts at a total value of more than NOK 4.35 billion to Odfjell Drilling for drilling wells on the Johan Sverdrup field. Odfjell Drilling has been awarded contracts both for the Deepsea Atlantic semi-submersible rig and for drilling services on the fixed drilling unit to be installed on the Johan Sverdup field. The rig contract includes the charter of the Deepsea Atlantic rig for three years, starting from March 2016. In addition there are six 6-months options. The rig contract has a value of slightly more than NOK 2.5 billion. “This contract is an important milestone for the Johan Sverdrup project.

COSL Drilling Europe is reportedly being forced to make 229 rig staff redundant as a result of Statoil’s decision to cancel the charter for semi-submersible unit COSL Pioneer. Statoil announced the termination of contract since 8 October 2014, which is 13 months before the expiry date. Statoil explained that contract was canceled, as company has not managed to find alternative activity for the semi-submersible drilling rig. The rig was one of three contracted from COSL Drilling Europe, a subsidiary of China Oilfield Services Limited (COSL). The contract for the COSL Pioneer was set to expire in August 2016. “This is the heaviest day in our company’s relatively short history.

Norwegian oil major Statoil said on Wednesday it will suspend a rig contract with Italy's Saipem due to overcapacity in its rig portfolio. The suspension of Saipem's Scarabeo 5 rig will take effect from the middle of August, and will last until March 1 next year, Statoil said in a statement. "We regret the need to suspend Scarabeo 5, but we will do our utmost to resume our drilling operations earlier than planned at the time of suspending the rig," it said. Reporting by Stine Jacobsen

San Leon Energy signed a rig contract for the drilling of the El Aaiun-4 well on the Tarfaya conventional licence, onshore Morocco. The rig contract has been signed with Entrepose Drilling for the Cabot 750 rig. The well is expected to spud in the second half of August 2015, and will take approximately 30 days to reach total depth (TD) of around 2000 metres below rotary table. The reservoir target is Tertiary channel sandstones, with good reservoir properties expected, and the surface location is approximately 14 Km from a gas market (El Marsa OCP phosphate processing plant, near Foum el-Oued). Oisin Fanning, San Leon Executive Chairman…

Viking Offshore & Marine has secured a 48-month charter for a second land drilling rig system for US$31 million ($41.8 million). Viking’s subsidiary Viking LR2 will charter the 1,500-bhp train-type land rig and related drilling equipment system to a Chinese land rig specialist. It will be immediately deployed on a North African oilfield concession jointly owned by a South Asian energy operator and the local energy authority. The first land rig was acquired from and leased back to the same charterer in September 2014 which used it to uncover natural gas. After positive assessment of hydrocarbon potential in the locality, the second rig was chartered to accelerate drilling activities.