Tullow Oil News

Esgian reports that offshore drilling contractors secured additional backlog in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, Egypt, Nigeria, and Brazil and operators confirmed new discoveries in Indonesia, Côte d’Ivoire, and China in its Week 10 Rig Analytics Market Roundup.ContractsDiamond Offshore has executed a two-year contract extension with a subsidiary of bp in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico for the 12,000-ft drillship Ocean BlackHornet.Shelf Drilling’s 250-ft jackup Rig 141 has secured a two-year…

Esgian reports rig-related updates from Dolphin Drilling, Diamond Offshore, and Seadrill in its Week 9 Rig Analytics Market Roundup.Report Outline:ContractsDespite Tullow Oil’s recent announcement that it would take a break from drilling offshore Ghana, Noble Corp. has stated that there has been no contract termination announcement and that its 12,000-ft drillship Noble Venturer is currently still contracted to Tullow into March 2025.Masirah Oil Ltd has signed a rig contract with…

Guyana is in "no rush" to draft a new production sharing agreement (PSA) for offshore oil development, its Natural Resources minister told Reuters, reversing a year-long drive to devise new rules for future output.The government of South America's newest crude oil producer said in 2021 it was planning a new agreement to revamp terms and boost royalties for future oil and gas projects. The proposed document was expected to improve terms for Guyana of a 2016 contract with Exxon Mobil and its partners for the prolific Stabroek block.But the tiny nation…

Fifty-eight workers tested positive for COVID-19 at an oil production facility run by Tullow Oil off Ghana's Atlantic coast, the company said in a statement on Friday,Fifty-seven workers tested positive on a support vessel for a floating production and storage (FPSO) unit.

Danish offshore drilling contractor Maersk Drilling is set to mothball several offshore drilling rigs, and as a consequence, reduce the number of offshore workers, citing low oil prices and the impact of COVID-19 pandemic as the reason."The COVID-19 pandemic and the lower oil price environment are impacting offshore drilling activity. Some tenders and projects are being delayed or canceled which adversely affects commercial prospects," Maersk Drilling said Friday.As previously reported, Tullow Oil in March sent an early termination notice for the Maersk Venturer drillship in Ghana.

Australia exploration company Karoon Energy has signed an agreement with the drilling contractor Stena Drilling and oil company Tullow Oil to contract the Stena Forth drillship for Karoon’s Marina-1 exploration well located offshore Peru."The Stena Forth has been contracted to drill one well, being the Marina-1 exploration well, in Karoon’s 40% owned and operated Block Z-38 in the Tumbes Basin in Peru with drilling scheduled to commence early in the 1st quarter 2020," said a press release from Karoon.The Marina-1 well sits in water depth of approximately 350 metres and is targeting a gross prospective resource of 256 million barrels (102 million barrels net to Karoon).In the case of success in Marina-1…

Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) led globally among companies in the third quarter (Q3) 2019 in terms of the highest number of oil and gas discoveries, said GlobalData.Of the total 38 discoveries made worldwide, EGPC had four, all being onshore discoveries. Of these, three were conventional oil discoveries while the remaining was a conventional gas discovery, said a report from GlobalData.Soorya Tejomoortula, Oil and Gas Analyst at GlobalData, explained: “Of the three conventional oil discoveries made by EGPC in Q3 2019, two are in the Western Desert Basin and the remaining is in the Gulf of Suez Basin. This lone conventional gas discovery was made in the Nile Delta Basin.”“Aker BP…

Tullow Oil is interested in new oil blocks off Ghana's coast as part of the British explorer's plans to consolidate its operations in the West African nation, Chief Executive Paul McDade said. Tullow is leading two operations offshore Ghana, including the country's flagship 100,000 barrel-per-day Jubilee field, which began commercial production in late 2010. Ghana's energy ministry said this month it would award nine new upstream oil blocks for commercial exploration off its coast beginning this year. "We as a company want to consolidate our presence in Ghana after our investments in Jubilee and TEN (Tweneboa, Enyenra, Ntomme). We don't want to stop there but keep growing," McDade told reporters in Accra, where he was meeting investors.

Ghana is set to award nine new upstream oil blocks for commercial exploration off its western coast beginning this year, the energy ministry said on Thursday.The West African country plans to award six of the nine blocks this year while the remaining three will be given out next year through a mix of open competitive tender and direct negotiations, the ministry said in a statement.It said state oil company Ghana National Petroleum Corporation will acquire one of the blocks to explore in partnership with a strategic partner to develop its technical capacity and become an operator.Ghana, which b

Flintstone Technology Ltd said it has secured a contract with MODEC for its in-line tensioning and pull through connection mooring system to be deployed off West Africa.The system will be used on Tullow Oil’s Kwame Nkrumah MV21 floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel located on the Jubilee field off the coast of Ghana.The mooring system will allow the conversion of the FPSO to a spread moored configuration.The Kwame Nkrumah MV21 is installed in approximately 1,100 meters water depth on the Jubilee Field, which is one of the largest oil fields discovered offshore West Africa in the past 10 years.Earlier this month, Flintstone…

Norwegian offshore shipowner  GC Rieber Shipping has entered into a time charter agreement with Deepocean BV for the SURF vessel Polar Onyx for a fixed period of three years with options to extend by up to two years. The Polar Onyx will be used in Ghana to support Deepocean's contract with Tullow Oil. Commencement is immediately and mobilization has begun. "We are very pleased to have secured a long-term charter agreement with Deepocean where we maintain a position to benefit from improving market conditions. The Polar Onyx proves yet again its market attractiveness being selected for the first long term subsea charter in a while. We look forward to servicing Tullow Oil in close cooperation with our client Deepocean", said GC Rieber Shipping CEO, Christian W. Berg.

Hess Corporation has entered into an agreement to sell its interests in offshore Equatorial Guinea to Kosmos Energy and Trident Energy for a total consideration of $650 million, effective January 1, 2017. “This sale is a further step in our strategy to focus our portfolio by investing in higher return assets and divesting more mature, higher cost assets,” CEO John Hess said. “Proceeds from asset sales, along with cash on our balance sheet, are expected to fund the development of our truly world class investment opportunity offshore Guyana. During the first half of 2017, net production from the company’s assets in Equatorial Guinea averaged 28,000 barrels of oil per day. Hess holds an 85 percent paying interest and is operator.

Noble Corporation has been awarded new contracts for one of its drillships under which the unit will operate in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico and later Suriname. The 2013-built drillship Noble Bob Douglas has been awarded a contract with Murphy Oil, which will last from early to late July. The rig’s dayrate has not been disclosed. After completion of the project, the ship will start a contract with Tullow Oil offshore Suriname from early October 2017 to early November 2017 again at an undisclosed rate. Tullow is planning to drill the high-impact Araku prospect, a large structural trap containing a potential more than 500 MMbo. Meanwhile, Shell has taken an early termination option on the Noble Hans Deul, which has been working for Shell in the UK North Sea since August 2016.

Kenya on Saturday inaugurated the first part of a new container terminal at Mombasa which is expected to boost by 50 percent the volume of cargo handled by East Africa's largest seaport. Construction of the 30 billion shilling ($296.74 million)terminal began in March 2012 and was completed in February this year. The project was financed by a loan from Japan through the Japan International cooperation agency (JICA), and Kenya will repay the loan over a 40-year period. A gateway to East and Central Africa, the Indian Ocean port funnels imports of fuel and consumer goods as well as exports of tea and coffee from landlocked neighbours such as Uganda and Rwanda.

Ghana began pumping crude from a second offshore field operated by British company Tullow Oil on Thursday, hoping the additional revenue will boost its flagging economy. The Tweneboa, Enyenra and Ntomme (TEN) field expects to average around 23,000 barrels per day (bpd) in 2016, eventually reaching 80,000 bpd along with associated gas to be harnessed to ease a domestic power deficit. President John Dramani Mahama opened the valves on the $1 billion Floating Production, Storage and Offloading vessel, the Prof John Evans Atta Mills, named after Ghana's former president who died in 2012.

Tullow not for sale but could be take-over target - COO. Amid one of the deepest oil price crashes in history, Britain's Tullow Oil is sending one of the world's biggest floating deep-water oil production platforms to West Africa to pump crude for at least 20 years. The 340-metre long production vessel, named after late Ghanaian president Prof John Evans Atta Mills, was converted in Singapore from a Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) super-tanker, and is expected to set sail this weekend to Ghana, where it is scheduled to gradually ramp up production from the TEN deepwater oilfield from July/August this year, the company's chief operating officer Paul McDade said on Thursday.

Leading classification society Bureau Veritas has opened a Verification Academy which will help it to meet increasing demand for verification in the EU and globally and to cement its leadership in verification. The Aberdeen-based academy trains both BV staff and clients in implementing the most beneficial methodology for verification of offshore installations. Bureau Veritas is the only externally accredited IVB under UKAS 17020 with respect to initial suitability and operational verification. Matthieu de Tugny, Senior Vice-President and head of Offshore, Bureau Veritas Marine & Offshore Division, says, “We see increasing demand for…

Uruguay is considering extending the length of its oil exploration contracts with foreign companies drilling in its waters in order to shore up investment at a time of plunging crude prices, it said on Wednesday. BP, BG Group, Total, a joint venture of Tullow Oil and Inpex, and a consortium of YPF, Royal Dutch Shell and Galp all have exploration agreements with the South American country and have invested around $2 billion to date. But the recent fall in oil prices has made exploration in Uruguay unattractive, Hector de Santa Ana, exploration manager at state oil and gas company Ancap, said in an interview. "The (current) prices don't tally with any kind of prospect on our maritime shelf," he said.

A dispute over maritime boundaries between Ghana and Ivory Coast is damaging Tullow Oil, which risks postponement of its TEN project in the waters off Ghana's coastline. The government of Côte d’Ivoire has applied for provisional measures, asking the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) to stop Tullow oil and other oil companies from exploring and exploiting oil in the disputed area between Ghana and that country. The company faces a period of uncertainty pending the court's decision, which will not be reached before the end of April. Ghana's Minority Spokesman on Energy, K.T. Hammond, said he is confident that "ultimately the Ivorian case will be fruitless"…

European shares fell on Tuesday, the last full trading day of the year, led lower by energy companies as Brent oil fell to a 5-1/2-year low on persistent concerns about a global supply glut. The STOXX Europe 600 oil & gas index was down 1.9 percent at 1219 GMT, taking its loss for the year to 15 percent. The price of Brent oil is down by about half since June due to a big oversupply and tepid demand, hitting energy companies hard. Explorers Seadrill and Tullow Oil were down around 3 percent. The UK FTSE 100 index fell 0.9 percent, underperforming its European peers, with London-listed energy majors BP and Shell down some 2 percent. UK retailer Next bucked the trend…

Uganda will auction new oil exploration acreage by December and compensate land owners at the site of a planned crude oil refinery, a government official said on Friday. Investor interest in Uganda's hydrocarbons potential has been growing since the east African country discovered commercial crude reserves in 2006, now estimated by government geologists at 6.5 billion barrels. Last month, the energy ministry issued a tender for a consultant to help prepare and package seismic and other data for the exploration fields that will be up for auction. "The consultant will also tell us how many blocks, which ones, what are their value," said Ernest Rubondo, commissioner for Petroleum Exploration and Production Department.

Ivory Coast will seek investors in its available offshore oil acreage, including seven new ultra-deep water blocks in the Gulf of Guinea, at a promotional event in Texas next week, a senior oil ministry official said on Tuesday. The West African nation will target companies including Exxon Mobil, Total, Eni, Anadarko Petroleum, Tullow Oil and ConocoPhillips , the ministry's oil director Ibrahima Diaby said. Prime Minister Daniel Kablan Duncan and Oil and Energy Minister Adama Toungara will lead the government delegation at its promotional event in Houston on Oct. 14 and 15.

Ivory Coast said on Friday it would file a complaint with an international jurisdiction after Ghana took legal action to resolve a dispute over the two nations' maritime border in an area rich in hydrocarbons. British firm Tullow Oil has licences in Ghanaian waters near to the boundary disputed by the West African neighbours. Bruno Kone, a spokesman for Ivory Coast's government, would not give details on where the complaint would be filed. "We will take this before the competent jurisdiction, but we are not going to say more for the moment," he told Reuters. Earlier this week, Ghanaian Attorney General Marrieta Brew Appiah-Oppong said Ghana had filed a suit under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea after 10 bilateral meetings failed to resolve the issue.