Rigs report: Chevron eyes drillship for Eastern Med; Transocean hits US$8.6Bn backlog 

In contracts news, jack-up utilisation has reached a new high of 402 active units this week.

Italian major Eni awarded Saipem a two-year contract extension for use of the Santorini drillship in the US Gulf of Mexico. The contract extension comes into force in August 2023 and is worth approximately US$280M. Saipem’s existing offshore backlog exceeds over US$1.4Bn.

Saipem first chartered Santorini from Samsung Heavy Industries in 2021 before exercising a purchase option in December 2022, citing the positive environment for offshore drilling and rising day rates for drillships. The day rate for Eni’s extension works out to about US$383,561. 

Transocean has issued its quarterly fleet status report with four harsh environment jack-ups scoring major deals: Transocean Enabler was awarded a 19-well contract in Norway at a day rate of US$377,000 with options for eight wells.

Transocean Encourage inked a nine-well contract in Norway at US$350,000 per day. Wintershall Dea exercised four one-well options in Norway for Transocean Norge. Day rates stand at US$338,000 per day, US$358,000, $358,000 and US$408,000 respectively. And Transocean Endurance secured a multi-well plug and abandonment contract in Australia at a rate of US$380,000 per day plus options.

The aggregate incremental backlog associated with these fixtures is approximately US$645M and as of 18 April 2023, the drilling contractor’s total backlog stands at approximately US$8.6Bn.

The Petroleum Safety Authority Norway (PSA) has awarded Wintershall Dea consent for exploration drilling in block 6406/2. The aforementioned Transocean Norge  will drill well 6406/2-11 in the Bergknapp prospect. PSA recently permitted Wintershall to drill in block 6507/4 in the Adriana and Sabina prospects, which are located in production licence 211 CS and are valid until 2 February 2032.

In the UAE, ADNOC Drilling was awarded a five-year contract to provide integrated drilling services (IDS) totalling US$412M from ADNOC Offshore, commencing Q2 2023. ADNOC Drilling will provide IDS for the development of the Upper Zakum field, the largest producing field in ADNOC’s offshore portfolio.

This contract is part of the company’s stated strategy to expand its oilfield services (OFS) business as it looks to double OFS revenues by 2025. ADNOC said it expects this contract to add nearly 20% to its annual revenue compared with 2022 and the company expects to generate US$500~US$550M in revenue in 2023.

And Brazilian oil and gas producer Enauta has restarted production from the well 7-ATL-2HP-RJS in the Atlanta field offshore Brazil following the installation of a new pump on the sea floor. The company halted production in March, just days after completing preventive maintenance of the water-cooling system of the FPSO Petrojarl I, which works at the field. 

A new three-well drilling campaign kicked off at the end of 2022 to help increase production. Enauta also purchased the FPSO Atlanta (formerly named OSX-2) last year, which will replace Petrojarl I in 2024 when the full development of the Atlanta field commences, originally with six wells, rising to 10 wells by 2029.

In the UK North Sea, operations have resumed at the Shell-operated Pierce Field following an upgrade to the Haewene Brim FPSO. A new subsea gas export line has been installed, connecting the unit to the SEGAL pipeline system, which brings gas ashore at St Fergus, north of Aberdeen in Scotland. The upgrade will allow for the production of gas after years of solely oil production.

Haewene Brim ceased production in October 2021 and spent six months in drydock to upgrade it to a vessel capable of producing gas, which had previously been re-injected into the reservoir. Peak production is expected to reach 30,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, which is more than twice the production prior to the redevelopment, with more gas being produced than oil. Gas will be sent through the new subsea pipelines while oil will be transported by tanker, as before.

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