Drilling & Completion News

New discovery near Troll field in North Sea marks Equinor’s 7th in the area since 2019

Equinor made an oil and gas discovery, Røver Sør, close to the Troll field in the North Sea. Preliminary estimates show the discovery’s size is between 17 million and 47 million barrels of recoverable oil equivalent, of which the majority is oil. The two exploration wells of the discovery were drilled by the Transocean Spitsbergen.

This is the seventh discovery in this area since the autumn of 2019. The six earlier discoveries are Echino Sør, Swisher, Røver Nord, Blasto, Toppand and Kveikje.

Equinor said it expects results from the next exploration well in this area, Heisenberg, to be ready in March. More exploration wells are also being planned.

“As this discovery is close to the Troll field and other discoveries we have made in the area, we can already now state that it will be commercial,” said Geir Sørtveit, SVP for Exploration and Production West Operations.

Equinor’s partners in the license are DNO, Wellesley Petroleum and Petoro.

Neptune spuds 4th well in Adorf gas field, expects to reach final depth in June

Neptune Energy has begun drilling at its operated Adorf Z18 gas production well in the municipality of Georgsdorf, northwestern Germany. The well is being drilled by KCA Deutag, with final depth of around 4,700 m expected to be reached in June.

“The Adorf field is already an important contributor to domestic energy supplies in Germany, providing enough gas to heat more than 100,000 households,” said Andreas Scheck, Neptune Energy’s Managing Director in Germany.

The Adorf Carboniferous gas field was discovered in 2020, and the first well – Adorf Z15 – was brought into production in October the same year. A second well – Adorf Z16 – increased Neptune’s production from the licence to around 4,000 BOEPD at the beginning of 2022. The third well – Adorf Z17 – reached its final depth at the end of 2022 and will be tested for production in Q1 2023.

The construction of a modern treatment plant for the natural gas from Adorf Z17 and Z18 is ongoing.

Shelf Drilling jackups working offshore Egypt win 1-year contract extensions

Shelf Drilling recently announced contract extensions for two of its jackups working offshore Egypt. Rig 141’s contract was extended for one year in direct continuation of its current term with Gemsa Petroleum Company for operations in the Gulf of Suez. Following this extension, the expected availability of the rig is February 2024.

A one-year contract extension was also secured for the Trident 16 jackup in direct continuation of its current term with Belayim Petroleum Company (Petrobel) for operations in the Gulf of Suez. The contract includes a further one-year option period. The Trident 16 has been working with Petrobel in the Belayim fields since 2015. Following this extension, the expected availability of the rig is February 2024.

Vito begins production in deepwater GOM 

Production has started at the Shell-operated Vito floating production facility in the US Gulf of Mexico (GOM). With an estimated peak production of 100,000 BOED, Vito is the company’s first deepwater platform in the GOM to employ a simplified, cost-efficient host design.

The original design for Vito was rescoped in 2015, resulting in a reduction of approximately 80% in CO2 emissions over the lifetime of the facility, as well as a cost reduction of more than 70% from the original host concept. Vito also serves as the design standard for Shell’s Whale project, which will feature a 99% replication of the Vito hull and 80% of Vito’s topsides. 

In separate news, Shell’s Pensacola discovery in the UK North Sea has the potential to be “one of the largest natural gas discoveries” in the region in over a decade, according to a co-owner of the license containing the discovery, Deltic Energy. Deltic, which owns 35% of License P2252 alongside Shell’s 65% and ONE-Dyas’ 5%, announced a “highly positive outcome” from Well 41/05a-2, the first exploration well at Pensacola.

The well was drilled to a total depth of 1,965 m true vertical depth subsea, and the presence of mobile gas and oil in the primary Zechstein Hauptdolomite carbonate target interval was confirmed via wireline logs. The well confirmed a reservoir thickness of 18.8 m.

Based on the data collected during drilling and testing, Deltic estimates the Pensacola discovery to contain P50 EUR of 302 billion cu ft. The company also said it expects the discovery will open a new Zechstein play in this mature basin.

Drillship nets 910-day contract in Brazil

Transocean announced the Dhirubhai Deepwater KG2, an ultra-deepwater drillship, has been awarded a 910-day contract by a national oil company for work offshore Brazil. The estimated backlog of $392 million excludes a mobilization fee of 90 times the contract dayrate. The new contract is expected to commence in Q3 2023.