Environmental groups and NGOs have challenged the Biden administration’s decision to open millions of acres of the Gulf of Mexico for oil leasing later this month and National Petroleum Corp of Namibia (NAMCOR) has announced a new light oil discovery in the Jonker-1X deepwater exploration well
Earthjustice, Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Centre for Biological Diversity have filed a lawsuit in the District of Columbia against the US federal government on behalf of Healthy Gulf, Bayou City Waterkeeper, Sierra Club and the Friends of the Earth.
The lawsuit against US Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) follows the final notice of lease sale 259 set for this month, which will offer up roughly 73M acres in the Gulf for exploration and drilling bids.
The lease sale is mandated by current US President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act 2022 (IRA), which has a significant focus on US energy policy and requires that the federal government hold separate offshore lease sales by March and September 2023.
The claimants in the lawsuit hold that while the IRA directs BOEM to open a lease sale, “it does not require such a vast area to be auctioned to industry, nor does it exempt the sale from any existing laws, including the National Environmental Policy Act.” The litigants allege BOEM has not considered the health hazards that might affect communities residing in proximity to oil refineries and other polluting infrastructure connected with offshore drilling.
They also say the decision jeopardises endangered marine life such as Rice’s whale, a baleen whale native to the Gulf of Mexico, whose numbers have dwindled to below 100 mature individuals, with the cause for the decline linked to offshore activity. According to a 2016 report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 is estimated to have wiped out a significant percentage of the species’ population.
In other news, offshore Namibia, a consortium including Shell Namibia, QatarEnergy and National Petroleum Corp of Namibia (NAMCOR) has announced a new light oil discovery in the Jonker-1X deepwater exploration well. Located approximately 270 km off the coast of Namibia, the Jonker-1X discovery is the third well drilled on the licence held by Shell within a year. Drilling operations commenced December 2022 and were completed this month. Odfjell’s semi-submersible Deepsea Bollsta drilled the well in Block 2913A and 2914B (PEL 0039) in the Orange Basin, offshore southern Namibia. NAMCOR said the acquired data is being evaluated and further appraisal drilling is planned to determine the size and recoverable resources.
Norway’s Solstad Offshore is set to exit the platform supply vessel (PSV) sector after the announcement that it will sell its entire PSV fleet to Texan firm Tidewater Inc with 37 vessels offered for US$577M. The move is meant to help Solstad cut its US$2Bn debt and will reduce Solstad’s OSV fleet to 49 anchor handling tug/supply and subsea construction and maintenance support vessels. Tidewater chief executive Quentin Keen said all 37 vessels are currently active and employed offshore in significant markets from the North Sea, to Brazil and Australia.
Global jack-ups and floaters continue to hold their numbers in week 10, 2023. Active jack-up units were down just one unit week-on-week to 390 active units.
Seadrill’s drillship West Neptune will remain employed in the US Gulf of Mexico after LLOG Exploration Offshore extended the rig’s term by six months. The contract is valued at approximately US$79M and the extension will commence in direct continuation of the rig’s existing term, keeping the rig busy until Q3 2024.
Seadrill subsidiary Aquadrill’s drillship Capella has secured a one-well contract for operations in East Africa with a subsidiary of Vantage Holdings International.
The total contract value is expected to be approximately US$37M and work will commence mid-April 2023 and to run until the end of May 2023.
Drilling contractor Valaris has announced a round of new contracts since its recent fleet status report last month. Valaris signed a three-year contract with Petrobras for drillship VALARIS DS-8. The rig will be reactivated for this contract which is valued at roughly US$500M, including a US$30M mobilisation fee.
Another drillship, VALARIS DS-12, clinched a 100-day contract with a TotalEnergies affiliate with work commencing Q2 2023.
Australian E&P firm Beach Energy signed a 70-day contract for the jack-up VALARIS 107 which will be deployed offshore New Zealand for work commencing Q3 2023. The total contract value is approximately US$26M.
Valaris president and chief executive Anton Dibowitz commented, “Following the reactivation of VALARIS DS-17 and DS-8, we will have 10 floaters working across the golden triangle, including four drillships in Brazil, a market where we expect to see continued growth over the next several years.”
Finally, the Petroleum Safety Authority Norway has given Aker BP consent to use the mobile drilling facility Noble Invincible at the Edvard Grieg field. As Noble Corp noted last month, its US$1Bn jack-up backlog is heavily weighted to the Noble Integrator and Noble Invincible commitments under the Aker BP alliance.
2014-built Invincible will work in the Edvard Grieg field in the Utsira High area in the central North Sea, 35 km south of the Grane and Balder fields. The water depth in the area is 110 m and the field is developed with a fixed installation with a steel jacket and full process facility, and utilises a jack-up rig for drilling and completion of wells.
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