Blackford Dolphin will move to India later this year (source: Dolphin Drilling)
A Chevron subsidiary will assume an 80% working interest in Petroleum Exploration Licence 82 (PEL 82), offshore Namibia; Dolphin Drilling has terminated a rig deal in Nigeria and ADES has found new work for a jack-up in Qatar after Aramco’s contract suspensions
Chevron’s decision to expand its presence in Namibia comes on the heels of a prolific oil discovery by Portugese multinational Galp Energia in Namibia’s Orange Basin.
With the first phase of exploration complete in Galp’s Petroleum Exploration Licence PEL 83 of the Mopane field, Galp estimated that the field could contain nearly 10Bn barrels of oil. Galp’s chief executive Filipe Silva said the discovery can underpin the company’s growth ambitions “for decades”.
As the operator of PEL 83, Galp Energia owns an 80% stake; its partners, National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia (NAMCOR) and Custos Energy hold 10% each. Canadian publicly traded oil and gas exploration specialists Sintana Energy own an indirect stake in PEL 83 through their subsidiary Custos Energy.
Sintana will have a similar stake in Chevron’s efforts in PEL 82. Chevron subsidiary Chevron Namibia Exploration Ltd is working with NAMCOR and Sintana Energy subsidiary Custos Energy on PEL 82’s blocks 2112B AND 2212A located in the Walvis Basin. The area is considered one of the basin’s most attractive opportunities and has been extensively surveyed.
Two wells, Murombe-1 and Wingat-1, have been drilled in PEL 82, with both confirming the presence of the Barremian-Aptian oil-prone source rock (Kudu shale).
“This is one of the most advanced and interesting opportunities offshore Namibia outside of the Orange Basin,” said Custos chairman and chief executive Knowledge Katti, also a director of Sintana. “We are pleased to see our efforts over the last decade on PEL 82 result in this important step forward, adding further to Namibia’s world-class offshore opportunity,” he added.
Contracts
ADES Holding has received a letter of award for a jack-up from an unnamed client, described only as “one of the major International oil companies.”
The one-year firm term will see the jack-up work in Qatar with three optional, six-month extensions totalling 18 months and the contract is valued at roughly SAR350M (US$93M).
Operations are expected to commence in the second half of the year utilising one of ADES’ jack-up drilling units. Readers will recall ADES was among the drilling operators affected when Saudi Aramcoissued cancellation notices for 18 drilling rigs last month.
The company said the latest award will help maintain its market share in Qatar with a three-rig operation after Emerald Driller moves to Indonesia to work for Pertamina in the Java Sea, later this year.
Dolphin Drilling has terminated its rig deal with Nigerian firm General Hydrocarbons Ltd (GHL) citing failure to comply with a payment plan.The semi-submersible Blackford Dolphin began drilling for GHL in March 2023. In November 2023, the contractor disclosed that GHL was due US$17M in past payments along with a part payment from GHL and a proposed payment plan related to the remaining past due payments. In 2024, the company received two instalments.
The two companies struck a deal in March 2024 to enable Dolphin Drilling to receive payment of all sums due under the contract and allow GHL to use Blackford Dolphin before the rig moves to India to commence work for Oil India Ltd.
The next payment based on the plan was due by late April 2024. But since the terms for payment have not been met, Dolphin has terminated the contract and will prepare Blackford Dolphin to transit to India.Dolphin Drilling said it intends to pursue the recovery of sums remaining due by GHL.
Oslo-based BW Energy has struck a US$150M deal with a Chinese financial institution to sell and lease-back a mobile offshore production unit working on its Dussafu Marine block in Gabon.
Minsheng Financial Leasing Co entity will take on the MaBoMo production facility which handles oil and gas from the Hibiscus-Ruche project offshore Gabon. The agreement will provide US$150M of gross sales proceeds under a 10-year lease term with an option to repurchase the unit from the end of year seven.
The transaction frees up US$110M of liquidity to BW Energy, in line with the working interest in the licence. (BW Energy has a 73.5% interest in the Dussafu permit offshore Gabon, with partner Panoro holding the remaining interest).
And last week, BP shut its Azerbaijan-based deepwater Gunashli platform for 15 days of maintenance work. The platform operates in the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) block offshore Azerbaijan. The planned maintenance work is part of its ACG annual work programme.
The British oil major said it will complete projects such as valve changeouts, nucleonic source replacement and required repair works will be undertaken during the TAR, as part of normal operations.
Located on the east side of the Gunashli field at 175 m water depth, the Deepwater Gunashli complex is the third phase of development of the ACG field in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian Sea and has produced oil since April 2008.
