This week Esgian’s Week 50 Rig Analytics Market Roundup notes developments within the semisub sector together with that Shell has determined to train its choice on Stena Don within the North Sea however not on Deepsea Bollsta in Namibia. Meanwhile, a brand new contract for the Transocean Barents will see it function within the Black Sea, and jackup Shelf Drilling Perseverance will transfer to Vietnam.
Contracts
Shelf Drilling has secured a contract award for the 400ft Shelf Drilling Perseverance jackup rig with PetroVietnam Domestic Exploration Production Operating Company Limited (PVEP POC). The rig will start mobilization to Southeast Asia shortly, and the deliberate start-up of operations with PVEP POC in Vietnam is Q3 2024. The agency time period of the contract is roughly 16 months, conserving it busy into This autumn 2025. The whole estimated contract worth for the agency interval is roughly $73 million.
The rig, beforehand referred to as Noble Hans Deul, has been working within the UK sector of the North Sea for years. However, it has been obtainable and heat stacked within the UK since July 2023, after it was launched from its contract with IOG sooner than initially anticipated. In addition to a decreased semisub provide within the North Sea area because of the departures of a number of rigs over the previous couple of years, the jackup provide within the area can be set to lower with the upcoming departures of the 400ft Valaris 247 for a contract to Australia and now the Shelf Drilling Perseverance. The Shelf unit was certainly one of six obtainable within the area, excluding Russia (North), with most of them idle for over a 12 months. As rig provide will get tighter, operators are exhibiting extra willingness to pay for mobilization prices to safe appropriate rigs for his or her campaigns.
Shell has elected to not train a remaining six-month choice underneath its contract for 7,500ft semisubmersible Deepsea Bollsta offshore Namibia, with the rig to turn into obtainable from June 2024. Owner Northern Ocean said that it’s persevering with ongoing dialogue with potential prospects in West Africa and harsh setting markets. Deepsea Bollsta is owned by Northern Ocean and presently managed by Odfjell Drilling.
The rig started work for Shell offshore Namibia in December 2022, with Shell exercising its first six-month choice for the rig in May 2023. Northern Ocean, which additionally has 10,000ft Odfjell-managed semisub Deepsea Mira working offshore Namibia for CompleteEnergies at the moment, said that it’s “confident its rigs are the right solution for this market long-term” however will proceed to market its models for alternatives “in all relevant offshore basins.”
Transocean has secured a minimal 540-day contract with OMV Petrom within the Romanian Black Sea for the ten,000ft semisub Transocean Barents. This comes following preliminary reviews that Seadrill’s 7,874ft semisub West Phoenix was the low bidder for this OMV tender for work on the Neptun Deep mission. However, the tender was revised and has now been awarded to the Transocean Barents.
Transocean hinted at a potential new contract award for this semisub unit, in addition to for the 12,000ft drillship Deepwater Skyros, throughout its Q3 2023 earnings name in late October 2023. The new contract within the Black Sea is at a charge of $465,000 per day, excluding extra companies. The program is anticipated to start within the first quarter of 2025 and is estimated to contribute roughly $251 million in backlog, excluding full compensation for mobilization and a demobilization price. For every day over 540 days, together with the 2 choice intervals, the working day charge will likely be $480,000. OMV Petrom said that the rig’s mobilisation to the Black Sea is scheduled to start in the direction of the top of 2024.
Ten wells are to be drilled for the Neptun Deep mission with work in shallow and deepwater areas. First fuel from Neptun Deep is focused for 2027. Halliburton Energy Service Romania and Newpark Drilling Fluids Eastern Europe will present built-in drilling companies. After working within the North Sea during the last couple of years, Transocean Barents left the area for a contract with CompleteEnergies in Lebanon in the summertime of 2023 and moved on to Cyprus in October for a properly with Eni. It is anticipated to work with Eni till January 2024 and, after that, CompleteEnergies has two remaining choices for the rig that would maintain it working into mid-2024.
Shell has exercised a six-month choice interval for Stena Drilling’s 1,640ft semisub Stena Don for the continuation of operations within the UK sector of the North Sea. Shell employed the rig for a one-year agency contract again in July 2022, and the agency portion of the contract began in May 2023. The contract is for a mixture of plugging & abandonment work and improvement wells. So far, the rig has labored on Gannet, Merganser, and Kingfisher fields.
As a part of the contract, the operator additionally secured a one-year priced choice for the rig and has now exercised six months, with the opposite six months nonetheless obtainable. The exercised choice interval is anticipated to start out in May 2024 and maintain the rig busy into late 2024, whereas the remaining choice interval may maintain it busy into May 2025.
Odfjell Drilling has signed an modification with Aker BP, which extends the agency contract for the 6,560ft semisub Deepsea Nordkapp in Norway. The prolonged time period will start on 1 January 2025, in direct continuation of the present agency contract interval, and run for a set period of two years. The two extra years are compensated on a market-based charge mechanism. As beforehand agreed with Aker BP in 2022, the contract worth for 2025 has a ground and ceiling day charge, leading to a contract worth of $124 million to $146 million, the place the ceiling of the day charge vary will likely be adjusted yearly based mostly on an inflation system.
The contract worth for 2026 is roughly $179 million, which will even be adjusted yearly based mostly on an inflation system. In addition to the market-based day charges, Aker BP can pay efficiency and gas financial savings incentive bonuses. The contract extension is topic to license companion approval. In addition to the prolonged agency period, the contract now consists of rolling one-year unpriced elective intervals, the worth of which will likely be based mostly on market charges set upfront of every respective elective 12 months.
Drilling Activity and Discoveries
Thailand-focused oil and fuel agency Valeura Energy mentioned it was planning to mobilize its contracted drilling rig to the Wassana subject offshore Thailand. The Wassana subject resumed manufacturing on December 8, 2023. Production on the Wassana had been shut down since 7July, following an incident wherein the floating storage and offloading vessel (FSO) stationed on the subject deviated from its meant place and “contacted” the sphere’s catenary anchor leg mooring (CALM) buoy.
Valeura had shut down the Wassana manufacturing “to handle security considerations with working practices on the third-party-owned and operated FSO. In an announcement, Valeura mentioned it will transfer its contracted drilling rig to the Wassana subject to conduct an infill drilling program comprised of three production-oriented horizontal improvement wells concentrating on deeper reservoir intervals throughout the subject.
According to Esgian’s database, the rig in query is Borr Drilling’s 350ft Mist jackup. Sean Guest, President and CEO of Valeura mentioned: “We have a brief window of opportunity in our overall drilling sequence plan to drill three wells at Wassana commencing later this month, which we anticipate will increase production capacity to over 4,000 bbl/d, before re-deploying the rig to our Nong Yao C development early in 2024.” He also said that Valeura was working toward a longer-term redevelopment of the Wassana field, to commercialize the two appraisal discoveries it made in Q3 2023 by adding reserves and expanding the overall capacity of the field. The FID on this is expected in 2024.
Neptune Energy has made a new discovery at the Kyrre prospect and confirmed the volumes for the Ofelia appraisal well, both located in the PL 929 license, close to the Gjøa field in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea. The license is operated by Neptune Energy (40%), with partners Wintershall Dea (20%), Pandion Energy (20%), Aker BP (10%), and DNO (10%). Neptune started drilling the Ofelia appraisal well, 35/6-4 ST2, in the Agat formation, in October 2023, using the Odfjell Drilling-managed Deepsea Yantai semisub. The well has been completed and the estimated recoverable volume is in the range of 16-33 million barrels of oil equivalent (mmboe). In addition, the 35/6-4 A sidetrack well was drilled into the overlying Kyrre prospect, resulting in a new gas discovery. Estimated recoverable resources are between 11-19 mmboe of gas, bringing the total recoverable volume from both discoveries to approximately 27-52 mmboe.
Located 23 kilometres north of the Neptune-operated Gjøa platform, Ofelia Agat and Kyrre will be considered for development as tie-backs to Gjøa. Neptune will also evaluate if the company’s oil and gas discovery Gjøa Nord (Hamlet), with estimated recoverable volumes between 8-24 mmboe, can be jointly developed. The Deepsea Yantai has now moved on to work for Vår Energi on the Hubert and Magellan (sidetrack) prospects. Norway’s Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA) has granted Harbour Energy consent for exploration drilling in block 15/9 in the North Sea off Norway.
The well 15/9-25, targeting the prospect named Amethyst, is located in production license 1138, which is operated by Harbour Energy in partnership with Sval Energi and Aker BP. The water depth at the site is 84 meters. Harbour Energy has also already secured a drilling permit for this well. The PSA’s consent includes an option for drilling sidetracks and well testing upon discovery. These operations will be carried out with the CJ70 jackup Noble Integrator, which was hired back in August 2023. The 492-ft rig is currently warm stacked in Stavanger, awaiting the Harbour contract, which will be followed by the Aker BP contract.
Following the Wei-1 and Kawa-1 discoveries, partners CGX Energy and Frontera are concluding the exploration phase on the Corentyne block offshore Guyana and believe around 514 to 628 million BOE of unrisked gross prospective resources are present in the northern portion of the block. The partners are actively pursuing options for a possible farm down as they move into the appraisal phase.
The Kawa-1 discovery was made in 2022, followed by Wei-1 in 2023. Both wells were drilled with Noble 10,000-ft semisubmersible Noble Discoverer (previously Maersk Discoverer). CGX Energy is the operator of Corentyne with a 28% interest. Frontera Energy has a 72% interest. Additional appraisal activities will be required before commerciality can be determined. The company has hired Subsea7 / SLB joint venture SIA to complete a conceptual field development plan for the northern portion of Corentyne, including development drilling and an FPSO. A final investment decision is targeted for 2026, with first oil in 2030 if the project goes ahead.
Wintershall Dea’s appraisal well on the Bergknapp discovery confirmed the earlier oil discovery as well as the 6406/3-10A gas discovery in the Norwegian Sea. Wintershall Dea originally discovered oil in the Bergknapp prospect in 2020, followed by a gas discovery in the deeper Åre Formation during a successful re-entry and sidetrack in 2021. After securing a drilling permit in September 2023, Wintershall Dea started drilling the 6406/3-12S well using the 10,000-ft Transocean Norge semisub in production licence 836 S. The licence is located in the Haltenbanken region of the Norwegian Sea, a core area for Wintershall Dea.
The appraisal well confirmed the size of the oil discovery. The updated recoverable resource estimate for the oil discovery in the Garn, Ile and Tilje formations is between 44 million and 75 million barrels of oil equivalent, while estimates for the underlying Åre Formation discovery are between 6 and 25 million barrels of oil equivalent. The licensees will now consider connecting both discoveries to existing infrastructure in the area. The Transocean Norge rig, under a long-term contract for Wintershall Dea and OMV, will now move to the nearby Wintershall Dea-operated PL211 CS license, where it will drill another appraisal well on the Adriana and Sabina discoveries.
Perenco UK has made a near-field discovery on Ravenspurn South (RS) with a new well, C06, proving gas in a previously undrilled fault block downdip of the currently producing RS field in the UK North Sea. This is the third well in Perenco UK’s Southern North Sea (SNS) 2023 drilling campaign using the 400ft jackup Valaris 247, and follows the successful drilling of Ravenspurn North sidetracks, D15 and D16, producing all together 30 MMscf/d.
The new well has found a 90m section of fully gas-bearing Lower Leman Sandstone, Rotliegend Formation, with reservoir properties in line with nearby RS producers. The initial rate, forecast for January 2024, is expected to deliver a Base Case of around 12 MMscf/d (2,000 boepd), bringing 21 Bscf (3.5 Mboe) incremental reserves after 30 years. After completion with the rig, the well will be stimulated with support from the Petrodec ERDA jackup barge.
A well test will enable effective monitoring and clean-up before connecting the gas produced from this new well via the Cleeton Hub into Perenco’s Dimlington terminal. Following the completion of its contract with Perenco, Valaris 247 is scheduled for a 60-day out-of-service period for contract preparations across Q1–Q2 2024, after which it is scheduled to work for Inpex in Australia. The operating day rate is $180,000, and Valaris will receive a mobilization and demobilization fee that covers operating costs while the rig is in transit.
Australia-based Beach Energy last week confirmed a gas column while drilling a development well at the Kupe gas field, offshore New Zealand. The well, being drilled by the Valaris 107 jackup rig in the Taranaki Basin, will be completed as the field’s fourth producer well, starting to flow in the new year. The progress update was shared this week by Andrew Jefferies, Chief Executive of NZOG, Beach Energy’s partner in the field, who said: “Kupe in South Taranaki, New Zealand, stays a key piece of the nation’s power infrastructure and a present that retains giving.” He mentioned that the properly would increase Kupe subject manufacturing and in addition present important insights into alternatives within the subject.
The improvement properly, known as the Kupe South-9 properly, is being drilled as a part of the Kupe Phase 2 Development Drilling Programme, and is the primary Beach-operated properly in New Zealand and the primary Kupe properly since 2009. Beach is 50% proprietor/operator of the Kupe subject. Its companions are Genesis (46%) and New Zealand Oil and Gas (4%).
