Northern Ocean News

Esgian reports that new drilling contracts have been announced in the North Sea and West Africa in its Week 17 Rig Analytics Market Roundup.Report SummaryContractsShelf Drilling (North Sea) has secured a letter of award with an unnamed operator, believed to be TotalEnergies, for the 400-ft jackup Shelf Drilling Fortress for a campaign in the North Sea.Noble 12,000-ft 7th generation drillship Noble Venturer has secured new contracts in West Africa with Trident Energy and Rhino Resources…

After a major conversion, Dutch marine services firm Boskalis has commissioned the BOKA Ocean vessel.The vessel was acquired in 2023 as a pipe-laying vessel and was subsequently converted into a broadly deployable cable-laying vessel.After BOKA Ocean completed its sea trials in the North Sea, the vessel is ‘more than ready’ to start on her maiden project in the German part of the North Sea, Boskalis said.The BOKA Ocean has been reunited in the Boskalis fleet with her two sister vessels.In fact…

This week Esgian’s Week 50 Rig Analytics Market Roundup notes developments in the semisub sector including that Shell has decided to exercise its option on Stena Don in the North Sea but not on Deepsea Bollsta in Namibia. Meanwhile, a new contract for the Transocean Barents will see it operate in the Black Sea, and jackup Shelf Drilling Perseverance will move to Vietnam.ContractsShelf Drilling has secured a contract award for the 400ft Shelf Drilling Perseverance jackup rig with PetroVietnam Domestic Exploration Production Operating Company Limited (PVEP POC).

An arbitration tribunal has delivered a verdict in a drillship order cancellation case involving offshore drilling contractor Northern Drilling and Daweoo Shipbuilding Marine and Engineering (now known as Hanwha Ocean), ruling in favor of Hanwha.Billionaire John Fredriksen-owned offshore drilling company Northern Drilling canceled the West Aquila and West Libra drillship orders with South Korea's Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering in 2021, citing delay of deliveries as well as a repudiatory breach of contract, and said it would seek a refund for installments paid.

Billionaire John Fredriksen-owned offshore drilling company Northern Drilling said Tuesday it had canceled a drillship resale contract with the South Korean shipbuilder Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME).In May 2018, Northern Drilling signed agreements with DSME to buy two newbuilding 7th generation DP3 and ultra-deepwater capable drillships DSME known as the West Aquila and the West Libra, for $296 million each with $90 million paid at contract signing and the remainder at delivery. However, Northern Ocean said  Tuesday it had canceled the contract for the West Aquila drillship due to delay of delivery as well as a repudiatory breach of contract.Northern Drilling…

The ice-covered Arctic Ocean is a more important factor concerning the concentration of the greenhouse gas methane in the atmosphere than previously assumed. Experts from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) report on the newly discovered interactions between the atmosphere, sea ice and the ocean in a recent online study in the journal Nature’s Scientific Reports. Sea ice forms a natural barrier on the Central Arctic Ocean, limiting gas exchange between water and atmosphere. Over the past several years, the summer sea ice cover in the Arctic has rapidly decreased. “We’re investigating how the changed conditions are affecting the geochemical interaction between the ocean…

The Obama administration has taken steps to keep drill rigs out of Alaska's northern ocean for a decade or more. The sudden of turnabouts is attributed to slowing down of economy. The U.S. Department of Interior announced that it is canceling two lease sales and will not extend current leases for companies interested in drilling in the Arctic waters off the Alaska coat. "The federal government is cancelling federal petroleum lease sales in US Arctic waters that were scheduled for 2016 and 2017," said Interior Secretary Sally Jewell. This happened three weeks after Royal Dutch Shell announced it was walking away from exploratory drilling in US Arctic waters.

As a part of President Obama's continuing commitment to help coastal communities recover from Hurricane Sandy and promote resilient coastal systems, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and the State of New Jersey signed a two-year cooperative agreement totaling $400,000 to identify sand resources for coastal resilience and restoration planning. The agreement will help BOEM and New Jersey conduct research that will help coastal communities recover from Hurricane Sandy, restore habitat, increase our knowledge of sand resources offshore, and contribute to long-term coastal resilience planning efforts. Under this agreement…