Industry News

The Norwegian Offshore Directorate gave ConocoPhillips permission to start production at Eldfisk nord in the North Sea offshore Norway. This is an installation consisting of two seabed templates for production and one for water injection – a total of nine production wells and five injection wells. Work is expected to begin in Q1.According to the operator, resource potential is projected to be 50-90 million barrels of oil. The investment amounts to nearly NOK 13 billion. The Eldfisk field is located in block 2/7 and is part of the Greater Ekofisk Area. Eldfisk nord will help increase the recovery rate from

Helix Energy Solutions Group announced a deepwater well intervention contract award by Esso Exploration and Production Nigeria.The project, located in the Erha and Usan fields, is expected to start in September 2024 with the vessel expected to be in Nigeria into 2025. The fields are located approximately 97 km offshore Nigeria in water depths ranging from 700 m to 1,500 m.Under the contract, Helix will provide the Q4000, a DP3 riser-based semisubmersible well intervention vessel, a 10k intervention riser system, remotely operated vehicles, project management and engineering services to cover fully integrated well intervention services from production enhancement to plug

The Norwegian Offshore Directorate granted Equinor a drilling permit for a wildcat well in the Barents Sea offshore Norway. The permit is for the 7220/2-2 exploration well in production license 1080. The license is valid until 14 February 2027.The well will be drilled using Transocean’s Enabler harsh-environment semisubmersible drilling rig, with work likely to begin in April 2024.（2024-02-23）

The Norwegian Ocean Industry Authority (Havtil) has granted Aker BP consent for exploration drilling in the North Sea offshore Norway on the Alvheim Deep prospect on well 24/6-5.Water depth at the location rests around 120 m and the well will be drilled using Noble Corporation’s Noble Integrator jackup.（2024-02-21）

Transocean has secured contracts for three of its rigs – the Transocean Barents semisubmersible as well as the Deepwater Skyros and Invictus drillships – according to its quarterly fleet status report. Altogether, these deals are worth approximately $326 million.As of February 2024, and including these newly-secured deals, the company’s total backlog is approximately $9 billion.The Barents was awarded a minimum 540-day contract in the Romanian Black Sea at a rate of $465,000. The contract, with OMV Petrom, is slated to begin January 2025 and end July 2026.The Deepwater Skyros was awarded a three-well extension in Angola by TotalEnergies at a

QatarEnergy has announced the award of the four main Engineering, Procurement, Construction and Installation (EPCI) contract packages related to the next development phase of the Al-Shaheen oilfield offshore Qatar to increase production by about 100,000 barrels of oil per day.The award is part of Project Ru’ya, the third phase of Al-Shaheen’s development since North Oil Company, a joint venture between QatarEnergy and TotalEnergies, took over the field’s operation in July 2017.Project Ru’ya is set to develop more than 550 million barrels of oil, which will be executed over five years with first oil expected in 2027. It includes drilling more

SLB announced a significant step toward fully autonomous drilling operations at Equinor’s Brazilian Peregrino C platform.By combining SLB digital technologies for surface automation, autonomous on-bottom drilling and directional drilling, 99% of a 2.6-km section was able to be drilled in autonomous control mode. Over a five-well program, a 60% increase in the rate of penetration was achieved, resulting in faster well delivery while reducing cost and carbon emissions.“This is an exciting milestone in the journey toward fully autonomous drilling operations,” said Jesus Lamas, President of Well Construction, SLB. “By leveraging AI and integrating advanced digital workflows, customers are realizing improved

Ocean services provider DeepOcean and Aker BP have completed subsea trials with an Autonomous Inspection Drone (AID) at the Aker BP-operated Alvheim field in the central North Sea.“While testing of autonomous technology is exciting on its own, our primary purpose was to find out if subsea inspection can be conducted more cost-efficiently and with better and more precise data quality with this new technology and associated methods. The conclusion is definitely ‘yes’. The development of the AID is an R&D project that is likely to deliver significant value to Aker BP in the coming years,” said Jarle Marius Solland, Operations