Esgian’s last roundup of the year for the Week 52 places highlight on new developments for Dolphin Drilling semisub, Seadrill drillships, in addition to Shell’s plans for Australia and ONGC’s new tender for jackups in India.
Contracts
Dolphin Drilling has signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) with an undisclosed operator for the 1,500-ft semisubmersible Borgland Dolphin to undertake a 500-day drilling marketing campaign within the UK. The drilling marketing campaign is deliberate to start straight after the agency a part of the contract interval with EnQuest, which was introduced in late November 2023. It features a 137-day drilling program, with EnQuest having an additional choice – alleged to be confirmed inside 90 days of contract signing – to increase for a big further work scope as a part of a strategic alliance over the five-year interval. Borgland Dolphin is scheduled to start the contract with EnQuest in April 2025. The contract worth below the LOI consists of an upfront money fee and a set dayrate. With this announcement, Borgland Dolphin has backlog all through 2025 and 2026, plus additional choices with schedule flexibility.
Following a bidding course of for rigs to work on the Buzios area offshore Brazil, Petrobras has awarded 1,064-day contracts to Seadrill‘s 12,000-ft drillship West Auriga and the ten,000-ft drillship West Polaris. The contracts are anticipated to begin in November 2024 and have a complete contract worth of round $1.1 billion, together with further companies and mobilization charges. The sixth era drillship West Polaris is at present working for ONGC in India on a contract to finish in January 2024 and is being managed by Vantage Drilling.
The rig will transition to administration with its proprietor Seadrill earlier than starting the Petrobras contract, which is valued at $518 million together with the mobilization charge and extra companies. The seventh era drillship West Auriga is working for BP within the US GOM below the administration of Diamond Offshore. The BP contract is predicted to finish in May 2024. West Auriga will transition to Seadrill administration earlier than work with Petrobras. The contract for West Auriga is valued at $577 million together with the mobilization charge and extra companies. Seadrill has been planning to take over the administration of those items because it accomplished its acquisition of Aquadrill in April 2023.
Nigerian operator Peak Petroleum is taking authorized motion towards Dolphin Drilling disputing the termination of a contract for the rent of the 6,000-ft Blackford Dolphin semisubmersible in Nigeria. Dolphin Drilling signed the contract with Peak Petroleum again in March 2023. The contract was for no less than 120 days and it was supposed to begin in late March 2024, in direct continuation of the rig’s present contract with GHL, additionally in Nigeria. However, in late November 2023, Dolphin eliminated the contract with Peak Petroleum from the rig’s backlog.
Days later, Dolphin additionally confirmed the termination of the contract, citing continued breach of contract situations, which included a failure to pay the rig’s mobilization charge within the quantity of $6 million. As a end result, the Blackford Dolphin grew to become out there after March 2024 and Dolphin entered discussions with Oil India to make use of the rig for a 14-month agency contract in India, which was beforehand alleged to be carried out by the 1,500-ft Borgland Dolphin. Dolphin Drilling has now acquired formal discover of authorized motion from Peak Petroleum disputing the termination of the contract. Dolphin Drilling disputes this place and along with its authorized advisors will take the suitable measures.
Drilling Activity and Discoveries
Brazil’s Petrobras spudded the Pitu Oeste nicely, marking the resumption of its oil and fuel exploration work in Brazil’s Equatorial Margin. The nicely is positioned within the BM-POT-17 concession, within the Potiguar Basin, 53 kilometers off the coast of Rio Grande do Norte. Pitu Oeste is the third nicely within the BM-POT-17 concession and can take a look at the dimensions of the invention made by the Pitu nicely in 2014. The final nicely on this concession was drilled in 2015. Petrobras stated that the drilling of the Pitu Oeste nicely would take 3 to five months. The nicely is being drilled with Foresea 10,000-ft drillship ODN II. The rig is contracted to Petrobras till late 2026. In October 2023, Petrobras obtained a license from the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources to drill two offshore exploration wells on the Brazil Equatorial Margin, the Pitu Oeste and the Anhangá nicely, within the POT-M-762 concession, positioned 79 km off the coast of the state of Rio Grande do Norte, near the Pitu Oeste nicely. In the 2024–2028 interval, Petrobras plans to speculate $3.1 billion in offshore oil and fuel exploration within the Equatorial Margin, with 16 wells anticipated to be drilled.
Australian offshore vitality regulator NOPSEMA has accepted Shell‘s Environment Plan for growth drilling on the Crux area offshore Australia. Shell submitted the plan on 29 July 2022, and the plan was accepted on 22 December 2023. The Shell-operated fuel area is positioned within the northern Browse Basin, 190 km offshore northwest Australia and 620 km north-east of Broome, in roughly 541 ft (165 m) of water depth. It has been recognized as a supply of backfill fuel to the present Prelude Floating Liquefied Natural Gas (FLNG) facility. The proposed Crux growth undertaking consists of a platform with 5 manufacturing wells.
The platform will probably be related to the Prelude FLNG facility through a 160-kilometre pipeline and will probably be operated remotely from the Prelude FLNG facility. Shell plans to drill 5 growth wells utilizing a moored semisubmersible. Before the rig’s arrival on the drill website, Shell will set up a drilling template, which is able to act as a information for the drill bit throughout drilling operations, within the first quarter of 2024. The drilling template set up marketing campaign is nominally scheduled to happen over a one-month interval. Following the rig’s arrival, drilling actions will begin for a deliberate length of roughly 10 months, with an extra 10-month contingency drilling interval.
To enable for rig availability choices, the marketing campaign could use two separate drilling rigs to drill totally different sections of the wells. While the title of the rig for use for Crux growth drilling has but to be formally confirmed, Shell’s EP included a “representative image” of a drilling rig that is perhaps used for Crux drilling, and the picture reveals the Transocean semisubmersible Transocean Equinox.
Transocean acknowledged in May it had secured a five-well contract from an undisclosed operator for Transocean Equinox in Australia. The rig left Norway in late November aboard the Blue Marlin heavy-lift vessel, which is at present crusing previous the coast of Guinea, en path to Singapore. According to the vessel’s AIS, it ought to attain Singapore on 8 February, 2024.
Demand
Azule Energy, Equinor, and Sonangol have signed danger service contracts (RSCs) with Angola’s National Agency for Oil, Gas, and Biofuels for offshore blocks in Angola. The contracts have been signed after direct negotiations. Azule Energy signed the RSCs for offshore Blocks 46 and 47 in partnership with Equinor and Sonangol Pesquisa e Produção, S.A. (Sonangol P&P), and for Block 18/15 in partnership with Sonangol P&P, on December 20. Azule Energy is the operator of the three blocks, with a 40% collaborating curiosity in Blocks 46 and 47 and 80% in Block 18/15. Sonangol P&P holds 20% of the collaborating curiosity in every block and Equinor holds a 40% collaborating curiosity in Blocks 46 and 47.
The three licenses cowl an space of roughly 8700 sq. kilometers within the deep and ultra-deep waters of the Angolan offshore. Blocks 46 and 47 have by no means been explored earlier than and, in keeping with Adriano Mognini, CEO of Azule Energy, signify a brand new frontier exploration space “that can be a game changer for our company and the country’s energy industry.” He stated that exploration in Block 18/15 might probably open a brand new play and benefit from the synergies with the manufacturing amenities already current in Block 18.
Indian state operator ONGC has launched a brand new tender to contract 4 jackups for 3 years with an estimated beginning date in This fall 2024. ONGC is in search of the items below two classes. Under Category I it seeks three items of the MLT-116 C/BMC-300 design or equal, and below Category II it seeks one F&GL-786 Mod-II design or equal, each classes for 300 ft of water depth, for operations off the West Coast of India. Bids are due on 6 February 2024. A pre-bid convention will happen on 9 January 2024. Furthermore, ONGC additionally has an open tender for 3 HPHT jackups for 3 years with an estimated beginning date in Q3 2024.
Mobilisation/Rig Moves
COSL 4,921-ft semisubmersible COSLProspector arrived within the Canary Islands in late December 2023, the place it’ll cease for round 20 days on the Zamakona shipyard for upkeep and crew change earlier than it resumes its journey to Norway. COSLProspector left China in October 2023 and has made varied stops since then. The unit’s ultimate vacation spot is Norway, the place it’ll start preparations for a two-year contract with Vår Energi to start in 2024.
