Drilling & Completion News
Production starts at Phase 2 of Raven offshore Egypt
BP announced the start of production from the second development phase of the Raven field offshore Egypt, which involves the subsea tieback of additional Raven infill wells to its existing onshore infrastructure as part of the West Nile Delta (WND) project.
The new wells are expected to produce approximately 220 billion cu ft of gas and 7 million barrels of condensate.
“Since January 2024, we have not stopped drilling for one day,” said Nader Zaki, BP Regional President for the Middle East and North Africa. “The focus of the Raven Infills project has been to fight natural decline and increase production while maximizing our existing infrastructure to meet Egypt’s domestic market demand at pace.”
The WND gas development comprises a series of gas condensate fields located offshore Egypt, within the North Alexandria and West Mediterranean Deepwater concessions. The Raven field, the final phase of the WND project, has been in production since early 2021. Its initial phase included the development of eight subsea wells, located up to 65 km offshore, at water depths ranging from 550 to 700 m.
Shell kicks off production from Whale, Penguin fields
Shell recently announced the start of production from two of its operated fields – Whale in the US Gulf of Mexico and Penguin in the UK North Sea.
The floating production facility at Whale replicates the four-column semisubmersible design of the Vito platform, with energy-efficient gas turbines and compression systems. With an estimated peak production of 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boed), Whale currently has an estimated recoverable resource volume of 480 million boe.
At Penguin, Shell restarted production in early February with a new FPSO, which will have approximately 30% lower operational emissions compared with the previous Brent Charlie platform, which ceased production in 2021 and is being decommissioned. The new FPSO is expected to extend the life of the field by up to 20 years.
The redevelopment of the Penguin field has involved drilling additional wells that are tied back to the new FPSO. Peak production is estimated at around 45,000 boed, and the field currently has an estimated discovered recoverable resource volume of approximately 100 million boe.
Equinor awarded 27 production licenses in Norway
The Norwegian Ministry of Energy recently awarded 27 new production licenses to Equinor – 20 licenses in the North Sea, six in the Norwegian Sea and one in the Barents Sea. Equinor is the operator of seven of the licenses and a partner in 20.
“There are still substantial resources on the Norwegian Continental Shelf,” Jez Averty, Equinor Senior VP for Subsurface, noted, adding that Equinor plans to drill approximately 250 exploration wells by 2035. Especially in areas with existing infrastructure, discoveries can be developed rapidly, at lower cost, and with lower greenhouse gas emissions.
“We have a significant portfolio of smaller discoveries near existing infrastructure,” Mr Averty said, citing Eirin as an example. That development, which will be tied back to Gina Krog, was approved in January 2024, and production is expected to start in late 2025. “The gas from Eirin will have very low production emissions since the Gina Krog platform is electrified.”
Noble, Valaris rig removals to tighten offshore fleet
Noble Corp and Valaris each recently announced plans to remove floating rigs from their fleets.
Noble announced it will divest the cold-stacked drillships Pacific Meltem and Pacific Scirocco, citing goals to eliminate costs related to these units and prioritize resources on the existing marketed fleet. The company said it intends to divest these units in a manner that would effectively retire them permanently from drilling operations, including potentially scrapping the units.
“Our decision to retire these non-contributing assets is based on a continuous cost-benefit evaluation of idle capacity,” said Robert W. Eifler, Noble President and CEO.
Valaris announced it decided to retire three semisubmersibles from its fleet: VALARIS DPS-5, VALARIS DPS-3 and VALARIS DPS-6. The company expects that these rigs will be removed from the global drilling supply and repurposed for alternative uses or scrapped.
Further, the VALARIS 75, a 25-year-old jackup, has been sold for $24 million. As part of the purchase and sale agreement, future operations are restricted to the US Gulf of Mexico.
Shelf Drilling to establish alliance with Arabian Drilling
Arabian Drilling and Shelf Drilling signed a memorandum of understanding to form a strategic alliance that aims to deploy some of Arabian Drilling’s premium jackup rigs outside of Saudi Arabia. “The alliance gives us a clear path to execute our strategy to develop an international footprint,” said Ghassan Mirdad, CEO of Arabian Drilling.
Separately, Shelf Drilling also announced it secured a one-year extension for the Shelf Drilling Scepter jackup rig for drilling operations offshore West Africa. The extension will commence in direct continuation of the rig’s current contract, extending the commitment until July 2026. The total added contract value is approximately $50 million.
