DEPARTMENTS • 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 equiv-
alent, 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.

Shelf Drilling jackups working offshore
Egypt win 1-year contract extensions
Neptune Energy's new well at Germany's Adorf gas fi eld is
being drilled by KCA Deutag and expected to reach its fi nal
depth of approximately 4,700 m in June.

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 begin-
ning 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.

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.

6 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 availabil-
ity 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 com-
pany’s first deepwater platform in the GOM to employ a simpli-
fied, cost-efficient host design.

The original design for Vito was rescoped in 2015, resulting
in a reduction of approximately 80% in CO 2 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 pri-
mary 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 dis-
covery will open a new Zechstein play in this mature basin.

M A R C H/A P R I L 2023 • D R I L L I N G C O N T R AC T O R