Esgian: rig market contracts, moves, drilling, discoveries and sales

Contracts 

Ventura Offshore has been granted exclusive marketing rights from Hanwha Drilling LLC for newbuild 3,658-m seventh-generation drillship, Tidal Action, for an ongoing tender process in Brazil. 

Tidal Action is under construction at the Hanwha Ocean yard in South Korea. The rig was originally ordered by Seadrill and previously named West Libra. Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering, now Hanwha Ocean, took over the rig after Seadrill cancelled.

Ventura Offshore is not the first company to announce marketing rights for the newbuild. In May 2024, Diamond Offshore announced an agreement with Hanwha to market the rig in the US Gulf of Mexico (GoM).

Ventura Offshore became a listed company in early June 2024, following its May 2024 acquisition of the assets of Brazilian drilling contractor Petroserv Marine Inc. The company will also manage Eldorado Drilling-owned 3,658-m drillship Zonda on its upcoming contract with Petrobras in Brazil, an agreement originally made by Petroserv.

Subject to a successful tender and contract award, Ventura will operate Tidal Action on behalf of Hanwha Drilling on a charter or operating agreement.

Transocean has announced a 365-day contract extension for 3,658-m drillship Deepwater Asgard with an independent operator in the US GoM. The programme is expected to begin in direct continuation of the rig’s current campaign, which is scheduled to end around June 2025. It is estimated to contribute approximately US$188M in backlog, including additional services. The rig has been working for Hess in the Gulf of Mexico since April 2023 on a contract fixed in 2022, which was understood to have multiple year-long extensions available. The previous one-year extension was announced at the beginning of April 2024. This latest extension means the rig is firm through the first half of 2026 with a further one-year option available.

Northern Ocean Ltd-owned 2,286-m semi-submersible Deepsea Bollsta has been awarded a one-well contract with an undisclosed operator offshore Namibia. The contract has an estimated duration of 63 days and is expected to commence Q4 2024. Northern Ocean did not confirm the operator for this well but stated it is a “subsidiary of a major operator”. Market sources have indicated the operator may be Chevron, which had been seeking a floating rig to drill an exploration well at PEL 90 on Block 2813B offshore Namibia, with work scheduled to begin Q4 2024. 

Deepsea Bollsta worked for Shell offshore Namibia from December 2022 until the beginning of May 2024 and since then has been anchored in Walvis Bay, Namibia. Northern Ocean said the rig will undertake its five-year class survey before commencing the new contract, with a short idle period also likely. With the new contract award, Northern Ocean estimates its aggregate revenue backlog to be between US$80M and US$95M.

Drilling activity and discoveries

ExxonMobil is drilling the Lau Lau-2 appraisal well on the Stabroek block offshore Guyana with Noble Corp’s 3,658-m drillship Noble Sam Croft. Drilling operations at the well are expected to continue until the end of July 2024. The appraisal well follows up the Lau Lau-1 discovery, announced in January 2022.

ExxonMobil currently has five drillships working offshore Guyana. The company has been drilling the Trumpetfish-1 exploration well with Stena Drilling 3,048-m drillship Stena Carron, which previously drilled the Red Mouth-1 exploration well. Noble Corp’s 3,658-m drillships Noble Bob Douglas, Noble Don Taylor and Noble Tom Madden are engaged in development drilling on Stabroek.

The Norwegian Offshore Directorate (NOD) has granted Equinor a drilling permit for an exploration well in the North Sea offshore Norway. The wellbore 35/10-13 S is targeting the Angel prospect. It is located in production licence 827 SB, which is operated by Equinor in partnership with DNO Norge. The well will be drilled with Odfjell Drilling’s 3,048-m semi-sub Deepsea Atlantic, which is scheduled for a yard stay and its 15-year SPS activities shortly.

OMV (Norge) AS has started drilling the Haydn gas prospect in the Norwegian Sea with 3,048-m semi-sub Transocean Norge. The Haydn exploration deepwater well (6605/6-1 S) is located in the northern part of the Norwegian Sea, 60 km southwest of the Aasta Hansteen field and approximately 275 km west of Sandnessjøen. The drilling campaign is expected to last up to 56 days in case of a discovery.

Last week, Wintershall Dea announced a gas condensate discovery in the North Sea after drilling the Cuvette (35/11-27 S) exploration well using Transocean Norge. The rig has also recently secured a 140-day contract extension with Wintershall Dea, which is expected to start Q1 2028 in direct continuation of the current programme.

Vår Energi has made an oil and gas discovery in well 36/7-5 S Cerisa and sidetracks 36/7-5 A, B, and C, located in the North Sea offshore Norway. The discovery was made in production licence 636 just north of the Duva field, 50 km southwest of Florø. The well, targeting the Cerisa prospect, was drilled using Odfjell Drilling-managed 1,189-m semi-sub, Deepsea Yantai. Neptune secured consent from the Norwegian authorities to drill the well with Deepsea Yantai back in 2023 and the well was initially planned for late 2023 but was delayed to 2024. The drilling permit was secured in February 2024 and the well 36/7-5 S was spud in late March. Preliminary estimates indicate between 3.9–6.2M m³ of oil equivalent, which corresponds to 18-39M barrels. 

Longboat Energy, the operator of Block 2A, offshore Sarawak, Malaysia, said a Competent Person’s Report (CPR) has confirmed the giant scale of the Kertang prospect located within the block. The CPR, produced by ERC Equipoise Ltd, has assigned a total gross, unrisked mean prospective resources of 9.1 TCF, plus 146 mmbbl of NGLs across the four target horizon Cycle I, Cycle II/III, Cycle V/VII AA, Cycle V/VII AA2. 

Equinor has completed the drilling of the Argerich-1 well on CAN-100 offshore Argentina with 3,658-m Valaris drillship Valaris DS-17. The company stated no clear signs of hydrocarbons have been found and the well is considered dry.

CGX Energy Inc and Frontera Energy, joint venture partners in the Corentyne block offshore Guyana, have submitted a notice of potential commercial interest for the Wei-1 discovery to the government of Guyana. The Wei-1 well was drilled with 3,048-m Noble semi-submersible Noble Discoverer in 2023, with the company announcing in November 2023 it had encountered 114 ft of net pay.