Deepsea Yantai drilled in the Vår Energi-operated North Sea licence 956 (source: Odfjell Drilling)
Off Africa, Galp and partners National Petroleum Corp of Namibia and Custos Energy are in the process of commercial evaluation of oil discoveries, while Brazil’s state-owned oil major Petrobras reported another oil discovery at a well in the Equatorial Margin
Last October, Brazilian federal agency IBAMA issued Petrobras an operating licence to drill two oil and gas exploration wells in deep waters in the Potiguar Basin on the Brazilian Equatorial Margin. Under the same environmental licence, Petrobras intends to drill Well 1-BRSA-1390-RNS (Anhangá) in the POT-M-762 concession, located 79 km off the coast of Rio Grande do Norte, next to the Pitu Oeste well.
The Anhangá well was drilled with Ocyan Drilling’s NS-42 drillship. The resulting oil discovery is located near the border between Ceará and Rio Grande do Norte, about 190 km from Fortaleza and 250 km from Natal, at a water depth of 2,196 m on the Brazilian Equatorial Margin.
This is the second discovery in the Potiguar Basin in 2024, but Petrobras cautioned both discoveries require further assessment. The company said it will continue exploratory activities in the POT-M-762_R15 concession, aiming to assess the reservoirs’ quality, the oil’s characteristics, and the technical-commercial viability of the accumulation.
In the North Sea, Vår Energi made an oil discovery in the Ringhorne Nord (wells 25/8-23 S and 25/8-23 A & B), north of the Ringhorne Øst field, in the Balder area off Norway.The wells are located in the Vår Energi-operated North Sea licence 956 and were drilled with Odfjell’s Deepsea Yantai semi-submersible rig.
Preliminary calculations peg the size of the discovery at between 2 and 3.7M standard cubic metres of recoverable oil equivalent to between 13~23M barrels.
Aker BP, Sval Energi and Harbour Energy are the other partners on the development. The licensees are considering a tieback of the discovery to existing nearby infrastructure and the discovery supports the plans for continuous development of the Balder area as a long-term production hub in the North Sea where Vår operates other prospects.
Vår Energi recently conducted exploration activity in the area, drilling two exploration wells in production licence PL 917 in the Hubert and Magellan prospects even though the wells came up dry.
Offshore Namibia, Galp Energia has successfully completed the first phase of the Mopane exploration campaign in the petroleum exploration licence (PEL) 83 in Namibia’s Orange basin.
In January 2024, the Odfjell-managed Hercules rig discovered significant oil columns in the Mopane-1X well that containing light oil in high-quality reservoir sands at two different levels: AVO-1 and AVO-2.Hercules then moved on to Mopane-2X in March and discovered light oil columns in high-quality reservoir sands across exploration and appraisal targets: AVO-3, AVO-1 and a deeper target.
The company said it has concluded the first phase of the Mopane exploration campaign with the conclusion of the Mopane-1X well testing operations.
Galp and its partners, state-owned National Petroleum Corp of Namibia and Custos Energy are now in the process of commercial evaluation of oil discoveries made in the last two months.
Custos Energy chief executive Knowledge Katti said the partners estimate Mopane alone contains potential reserves “in excess of 10Bn barrels of original oil in place making it one of the largest discoveries globally.”
Reuters now reports Lisbon-based Galp is now offering to sell half of its stake in the block, while ceding control of the project’s development, though the report is based on unnamed sources.
Contracts
Trident Energy awarded Noble Corp a drilling contract for the Noble Venturer drillship to restart infill drilling at the Ceiba Field and Okume Complex offshore Equatorial Guinea.Noble Venturer is currently engaged in a long-term drilling campaign for Tullow Oil in Ghana which is expected to conclude in late May, following which it will move to Equatorial Guinea and commence drilling in June. The drilling campaign is estimated to last 150 days.
Readers will recall that Trident cancelled a contract for Island Drilling’s semi-submersible Island Innovator back in February, citing safety concerns.
London-based Trident serves as operator of Block G in Equatorial Guinea with a 40.375% stake, Kosmos Energy holds an equivalent share while Panoro Energy and GEPetrol make up 14.250% and 5.000% respectively.
Noble Venturer will also drill the Kosmos Energy-operated Akeng Deep infrastructure led exploration (ILX) well in Block S once the two Block G infill wells have been drilled and completed. Following the Equatorial Guinea deal, the drillship is slated to move to Namibia, where it will begin drilling Rhino Resources at an exploratory campaign consisting of a minimum of two wells. This drilling programme is anticipated to begin in November 2024.
Transocean’s latest fleet status has revealed that its backlog has reached US$8.9Bn. Two drillships have secured extensions in the Gulf of Mexico and Angola.
Hess Corp awarded Deepwater Asgard a 365-day contract extension in the US Gulf of Mexico at a rate of US$505,000, while TotalEnergies has exercised a three-well option worth US$400,/day for Deepwater Skyros to keep the rig offshore Angola. The Angola campaign is expected to begin in July 2025.
Deepwater Invictus has had its work with an undisclosed client extended into July 2024. The rig initially began a short-term (40-day) job in the US Gulf of Mexico in January. Transocean has assigned Deepwater Invictus a 1,080-day contract offshore Mexico to begin in November 2025. This work is understood to be with Woodside for the Trion development. Although currently assigned to Deepwater Invictus, the work may also be assigned to Deepwater Proteus or Deepwater Thalassa drillships. A decision will be made by November 2024.
Middle East contractor ADES Holding received a letter of award from an undisclosed customer (described only as an ‘international oil company’) for a one-year firm drilling contract with three six-month options for a jack-up offshore Qatar. The total contract value from the firm and optional terms is estimated at US$93M.
And work is set to begin in H2 2024, using one of the five jack-ups that had their contracts suspended with Saudi Aramco.
