Esgian Week 15 Report: South America Remains Vital
Esgian reports on new contracts for Borr Drilling and Shelf Drilling (North Sea) jackups in its Week 15 Rig Analytics Market Roundup. Additionally, Energean has selected a drillship for its upcoming drilling campaign offshore Morocco. South America remains vital to the floating rig market, with ExxonMobil moving ahead on a sixth development on the prolific Stabroek block offshore Guyana and Petrobras reporting a new discovery in Brazil's Potiguar Basin.
Report Outline:
Contracts
Borr Drilling has announced new contract commitments for three of its premium jackup rigs, the 400-ft Prospector 1 and Gunnlod, and a rig to be determined. The commitments total 820 days and $158.6 million in contract revenue, including mobilisation and demobilisation compensation.
Energean has awarded a one-well contract to Stena Drilling for the drillship Stena Forth. Energean will use the rig to drill the Anchois-East appraisal and development well, located within the Lixus licence, off Morocco.
Shelf Drilling subsidiary Shelf Drilling North Sea has secured more work with Equinor for the jackup Shelf Drilling Barsk, until recently known as Noble Lloyd Noble.
Drilling Activity and Discoveries
Petrobras has discovered an accumulation of oil at the Anhangá exploratory well in the POT-M-762_R15 Concession in the Potiguar Basin. The well was drilled with Foresea 10,000-ft drillship ODN II in 7,204 ft of water in Brazil’s Equatorial Margin area. Well 1-BRSA-1390-RNS (Anhangá) is Petrobras’ second discovery in the Potiguar Basin this year after it determined the presence of hydrocarbons at the Pitu Oeste well on BM-POT-17 in January 2024. Petrobras said that both discoveries require additional evaluation.
Shell Egypt has started drilling the Khufu-1 prospect, the last exploration well in its drilling campaign in Egypt. The supermajor is using Stena Drilling’s 10,000-ft drillship Stena Forth for the campaign.
Demand
Norwegian operator OKEA, in collaboration with its partners, has made a final investment decision (FID) for the development of the Brasse field, to be renamed Bestla, based on a tie-back to the nearby production facilities of the Brage field offshore Norway.
ExxonMobil has made a final investment decision for the Whiptail development offshore Guyana, following required government and regulatory approvals. Whiptail is the sixth project on the Stabroek block and is expected to add around 250,000 b/d of capacity by the end of 2027.
Mobilisation/Rig Moves
Dorado, a recently delivered 7th Generation 12,000-ft ultra-deepwater drillship, has departed South Korea. The rig left Samsung Heavy Industries yard on Saturday, and is now en route to Labuan, Malaysia.
COSL Drilling’s 2,460-ft semisub COSLInnovator has mobilised from a yard in Norway to the UK sector of the North Sea for a contract with Petrofac.
Other News
Australian oil and gas company Woodside has decided to retain its stakes in the Macedon and Pyrenees assets offshore Western Australia.
U.S. oil major Chevron has withdrawn from the Yadana project offshore Myanmar.
