Esgian Week 26 Report: Drilling Activity is High

Esgian provides an update on drilling activity in its Week 26 Rig Analytics Market Roundup.

Report Summary

Contracts

Ventura Offshore has been granted exclusive marketing rights from Hanwha Drilling LLC for the newbuild 12,000-ft 7th generation drillship, Tidal Action, for an ongoing tender process in Brazil.

Transocean has announced a 365-day contract extension for the 12,000-ft drillship Deepwater Asgard with an independent operator in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.

Northern Ocean Ltd.-owned 7,500-ft semisubmersible Deepsea Bollsta has been awarded a one-well contract with an undisclosed operator offshore Namibia.

Drilling Activity and Discoveries

ExxonMobil is drilling the Lau Lau-2 appraisal well on the Stabroek block offshore Guyana with Noble 12,000-ft drillship Noble Sam Croft.

The Norwegian Offshore Directorate (NOD) has granted Equinor a drilling permit for an exploration well in the North Sea offshore Norway.

Masirah Oil Limited (MOL) is evaluating the performance of the Yumna-5 well at the Yumna field on Block 50 offshore Oman after the recent completion of a multi-well program on the block ahead of schedule.

Partner Ecopetrol has confirmed that Petrobras is currently drilling the appraisal well Uchuca-2 on the Tayrona Block offshore Colombia.

OMV (Norge) AS has started drilling the Haydn gas prospect in the Norwegian Sea with the 10,000-ft semisub Transocean Norge.

Vår Energi has made an oil and gas discovery in well 36/7-5 S Cerisa and sidetracks 36/7-5 A, B, and C, located in the North Sea offshore Norway.

Longboat Energy, the operator of Block 2A, offshore Sarawak, Malaysia, said Thursday that a Competent Person's Report has confirmed the giant scale of the Kertang prospect located within the block.

Equinor has completed the drilling of the Argerich-1 well on CAN-100 offshore Argentina with the 12,000-ft Valaris drillship Valaris DS-17.

CGX Energy Inc. and Frontera Energy, joint venture partners in the Corentyne block offshore Guyana, have submitted a notice of potential commercial interest for the Wei-1 discovery to the government of Guyana.

Aker BP and its partners have discovered gas in wildcat well 7324/8-4 (Hassel) in the Barents Sea, around 300 kilometers from the northern coast of Norway.

Demand

ADNOC Drilling is seeking expressions of interest (EOI) to provide one jackup rig for the Middle East for ADNOC Offshore for one of its gas fields.

ExxonMobil Guyana Limited has submitted an Application for Environmental Authorization for a potential seventh offshore project around the Hammerhead discovery on the Stabroek block offshore Guyana.

Mobilisation/Rig Moves

Saipem-managed 375-ft jackup Perro Negro 9 is being towed from Ras Tanura to the Arab Shipbuilding & Repair Yard (ASRY) in Bahrain.

Noble’s 350-ft CJ50 jackup, Noble Resilient, has completed its contract in the Danish sector of the North Sea and is now moving to the UK sector ahead of a new contract with Harbour Energy.

Transocean's 12,000-ft drillship Deepwater Aquila has started its inaugural contract with Petrobras in Brazil.

Rig Sales

Transocean has entered into an agreement to sell the 9,600-ft semisubmersible Deepwater Nautilus and associated assets to an undisclosed party for $53.5 million.

Seadrill Limited has completed the sale of the 400-ft jackups West Castor, West Telesto, and West Tucana, along with the 50% equity interest in the GulfDrill joint venture that operates the units offshore Qatar, to joint venture partner Gulf Drilling International for $338 million.

Ventura Offshore announced on 27 June 2024 that it will acquire the 6th gen Intl 10,000-ft semisubmersible SSV Catarina for a gross price of $105 million.

Other News

Mexican conglomerate Grupo Carso has completed its acquisition of PetroBal Operaciones Upstream S.A. de. CV, which holds a 50% interest in the Ichalkil and Pokoch fields on Contractual Area 4 offshore Mexico.

The Dutch Council of State (Raad van State) on Friday 21 June 2024 ruled that ONE-Dyas can continue the offshore activities on gas production project N05-A in the North Sea.

Conrad Asia Energy has signed a binding gas sales agreement (GSA) with PT Pertamina’s subsidiary PGN for the sale of gas from the Mako gas field development in Indonesia.

Australian oil and gas company 3D Energi and ConocoPhillips have negotiated a consolidation of farm-out obligations, allowing the $30 million T/49P well carry obligation to be applied in either the T/49P or VIC/P79 offshore blocks in Australia’s Otway Basin.

Source Energy has entered into an agreement to sell its 20% share in licences PL878, PL878 B, and PL 878 C, containing the Atlantis discovery, to ORLEN Group’s PGNiG Upstream Norway.

TotalEnergies has signed an agreement to acquire a 60% interest and operatorship in Block STP02, offshore Sao Tome and Principe, from the Agência Nacional do Petroléo de S. Tomé e Principé (ANP-STP).

Petronas, through Malaysia Petroleum Management (MPM), has signed a Small Field Asset (SFA) Production Sharing Contract (PSC) with Vestigo Petroleum for a Discovered Resource Opportunity (DRO) cluster, which was marketed under the Malaysia Bid Round Plus (MBR+).

TotalEnergies has signed an agreement to sell its entire interest in West of Shetland assets in the United Kingdom to The Prax Group.