Global offshore jack-up rig drilling activity dipped to its lowest level in 16 weeks, dropping to 319 contracted units during week nine 2021
Westwood Global Energy’s RigLogix reported five less offshore jack-up rigs drilling week-on-week, falling from 324. This represented the most significant week-on-week drop-off in active offshore jack-up drilling since week 45 2020, when seven fewer units were drilling from week 44.
Jack-up drilling fell one unit in the North Sea, while southeast Asia and the Middle East remained stable.
The news came as the May futures for the benchmark for global crude, Brent oil, fell US$0.73 on 1 March to close at US$63.69 as traders looked ahead to OPEC+ meetings on 4 March. Expectations are that current production curbs may be relaxed to allow between 500,000 to 1.5M barrels of oil extra per day into the market. The oil slide came despite continued global vaccines rollouts and the passage by the US House of a massive US$1.9Tn Covid stimulus package. The legislation now awaits debate in the US Senate.
Meanwhile, RigLogix reported that the active global floater fleet in the North Sea inched up one unit week-on-week to 21, while the South America and West Africa drilling markets remained flat. Overall, 108 semi-submersibles, drill ships and other floaters were contracted for the week.
In the Mediterranean, offshore services provider TechnipFMC scored two wins from Energean for subsea work, with awards for offshore Israel and Egypt. TechnipFMC has received a letter of award from Energean Israel Limited for the development of the Karish North field, located offshore Israel. TechnipFMC will design, manufacture, deliver and install subsea equipment including the subsea production system, rigid flowlines and umbilicals as a tieback to the Energean Power FPSO as well as the second gas export riser. The first gas from the deepwater project is expected in H2 2023.
Construction of the newbuild Energean Power FPSO is one of the S$1.7Bn (US$1.3Bn) worth of projects underway at Sembcorp Marine’s Admiralty Shipyard in Singapore.
A week earlier, gas producer Energean said its AbuQir Petroleum joint venture signed an integrated EPCI contract with Paris-listed TechnipFMC for a subsea tie-back located offshore Egypt. The contract covers EPCI work on four subsea wells and subsea tiebacks to existing AbuQir Petroleum infrastructure and processing plant. The development wells will be drilled in a water depth between 60 and 90 m. Three of them will be located in the North El Amriya (NEA) concession, operated by the Petroamriya joint venture (JV) between Energean and EGAS, and one in North Idku (NI), the concession operated by the Nipetco JV between Energean and EGPC. The NEA concession contains two discovered and appraised gas fields (Yazzi and Python) while the NI concession contains four discovered gas fields, one of which is ready for development.
The integrated project NEA/NI is due to deliver first gas in H2 2022.
A contract between Norwegian independent Lundin Energy and Bergen-based Odfjell Drilling was finalised for a drilling campaign for the semi-submersible Deepsea Stavanger, with three firm wells and options for six others. With a start date of Q3 2021, the contract has a value of US$33M.
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