Esgian Week 10 Report: Additional Backlog Secured

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.

Contracts

Diamond 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 contract extension in Egypt.

Shelf Drilling has secured a three-well contract with an undisclosed local operator in Nigeria for its idle 375-ft jackup Baltic.

Foresea's 10,000-ft drillship, ODN II, has secured a 363-day contract extension with Petrobras to continue operations in the Equatorial Margin.

Drilling Activity and Discoveries

Shell confirmed that it has spudded the Enigma 1-X exploration well on PEL 0039 offshore Namibia.

Operator Petronas and its partner ExxonMobil have signed a letter of agreement (LoA) with Suriname’s state oil company Staatsolie for further exploration on Block 52, following up from the natural gas discovery made at the Sloanea-1 exploration well in 2020.

Beach Energy is looking to drill multiple wells in the Otway Basin and Bass Basin offshore Australia. The company has submitted an environmental plan to the Australian offshore safety body NOPSEMA, and the plan is now open for comment.

Harbour Energy has recently made a small gas discovery in Indonesia and shared future plans for the 10,000-ft drillship West Capella it is using to drill in the region.

Brazilian giant Petrobras has started drilling the Joelho (1-BRSA-1391-ESS) wildcat in Block ES-M-596 in the Espírito Santo Basin.

Eni has made a “significant discovery” on block CI-205 offshore Côte d’Ivoire. The company stated that preliminary assessments of the Calao discovery indicated potential resources between 1 billion and 1.5 billion BOE.

China's CNOOC has made a major oilfield discovery of Kaiping South in the South China Sea, adding over a hundred million tonnes of oil equivalent proved in-place volume.

Demand

In his Spring Budget 2024 speech, UK Chancellor of The Exchequer Jeremy Hunt said that the sunset on the UK’s Energy Profits Levy would be extended for an additional year to the end of March of 2029.

Following the UK government’s announcement about the extension of the Energy Profits Levy (EPL) on the oil and gas producers in the country, also known as the windfall tax, the industry has expressed its disappointment with the decision, voicing concerns about the potential impact of this on investments in the sector.

Hartshead Resources is reviewing the project economics and timeline associated with its Phase 1 development plan (Somerville and Anning) in the UK North Sea, given the recently proposed changes in taxation policy from the UK Labour Party.

Rig Sales

Ocean Oilfield's 150-ft jackup rig Dhabi II is currently being marketed for work or sale. Dhabi II was delivered from Baker Marine in 1981 as Sedco 160 and has predominantly worked in the UAE for ADNOC.

Mobilisation/Rig Moves

Diamond Offshore’s 3,000-ft semisub Ocean Patriot has mobilised from Invergordon, Scotland to the UK North Sea for a contract with Serica Energy.

ARO Drilling CEO Mohamed Hegazi stated that the company’s 350-ft newbuild jackup Kingdom 2 is undergoing the final stages of commissioning and is anticipated to be delivered and begin work for Saudi Aramco in a few weeks.

Eldorado Drilling has taken delivery of the 12,000-ft drillship Zonda from Samsung Heavy Industries in South Korea. The newly-delivered rig is now en route from South Korea to Singapore, with arrival expected around 18 March 2024.

Thai oil and gas company PTTEP is set to move the 400-ft jackup Noble Tom Prosser from a well site offshore Sarawak, Malaysia, to Labuan anchorage. The jackup drilling rig will move from PTTEP's Satong-1 well, Block SK405B, to Labuan anchorage starting on 9 March until 13 March 2024.

Other News

APA Corporation and its partners CEPSA and Petronas have returned part of Block 53 offshore Suriname to state owned company Staatsolie.

Offshore drilling contractor Shelf Drilling has reported a loss and a decrease in revenues in the last quarter of 2023 due to lower fleet utilisation.

Shelf Drilling is contemplating major out-of-service projects for 300-ft jackups J.T. Angel and Trident XII in the second half of 2024, if the rigs are awarded new three-year contracts in an ongoing tender with Indian state operator ONGC.

Speaking during the company’s Q4 2023 conference call, executives at Shelf Drilling said that they expect to secure a new contract for the 300-ft jackup Trident 16 before the end of the second quarter of 2024.

As Shelf Drilling North Sea 500-ft jackup Shelf Drilling Barsk (Noble Lloyd Noble) prepares for its upcoming contract offshore Norway, the company said that they are in advanced discussions that could keep the rig working until the end of 2025.

Talos Energy has completed the acquisition of QuarterNorth Energy. QuarterNorth has assets concentrated in the deepwater US GOM, while Talos operates both in the United States and offshore Mexico.

Oil and gas drilling services provider ADES Holding Company reported revenues of SAR 4.3 billion and normalized net profit of SAR 473.1 million for 2023, up by 75.6% and 84.2% year on year. ADES provides onshore drilling services as well as jackups.

TotalEnergies has expanded its presence in South Africa's Orange Basin with a new offshore exploration licence.

The Norwegian Ministry of Energy has announced two areas for CO2 storage comprising defined blocks in the North Sea off Norway.
Tullow Oil stated that it is maturing the prospect inventory on exploration licences CI-524 and CI-803 offshore Côte d'Ivoire ahead of drill candidate selection for an exploration well to potentially be drilled in 2025.

Challenger Energy Group has entered into a farm-out agreement with a subsidiary of Chevron, which will see Chevron acquire a 60% interest and assume operatorship of AREA OFF-1 block offshore Uruguay, Chevron will pay the company $12.5 million cash on completion of the transaction.

Viaro Energy has received regulatory approval from the UK’s North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) for the assignment in the Bressay oil field licence in the North Sea, following the recently completed acquisition agreement with EnQuest.

Petronas, via Malaysia Petroleum Management (MPM), has signed Production Sharing Contracts (PSC) for two Discovered Resource Opportunities (DRO) clusters, BIGST and Tembakau, located offshore Peninsular Malaysia.