Drill Site News

Esgian's last roundup of the year for the Week 52 puts spotlight on new developments for Dolphin Drilling semisub, Seadrill drillships, as well as Shell’s plans for Australia and ONGC’s new tender for jackups in India.ContractsDolphin Drilling has signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) with an undisclosed operator for the 1,500-ft semisubmersible Borgland Dolphin to undertake a 500-day drilling campaign in the UK. The drilling campaign is planned to begin directly after the firm part of the contract period with EnQuest, which was announced in late November 2023.

Vietnam's state oil firm PetroVietnam has ordered Spanish energy firm Repsol to suspend its "Red Emperor" project off the country's southeastern coast following pressure from China, the BBC reported on Friday. It would be the second time in less than a year that Vietnam has had to cancel a major oil development in the South China Sea under pressure from China. The move comes as Repsol was making final preparations for commercial drilling. A rig, the Ensco 8504, was scheduled to depart from Singapore for the drill site on Thursday, the report said, citing an unnamed energy industry source. The cancellation could cost Repsol and its partners $200 million in sunk investment, according to the BBC. Repsol and PetroVietnam executives could not immediately be reached for comment.

Italian oil producer Eni began drilling the new well off the north coast of Alaska, becoming the first company to do so since 2015, reports Reuters. "New oil exploration in Arctic federal waters is underway this week with the spudding of a new oil well from an existing man-made island in the Beaufort Sea. Two Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) personnel were on-hand Monday ensuring compliance with approved permits, federal regulations and safety standards as Eni U.S. Operating Co Inc began new well operations from Spy Island Drillsite in State waters," said a press statement from regulator U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE).

Developing the capability to discriminate between ships and icebergs in northern latitudes is a common interest shared by Canada’s Department of National Defense (DND) and the oil and gas industry. For DND, the focus is on ship detection for maritime security, whereas oil and gas companies are interested in detecting icebergs to ensure primarily the safety and also the productivity of offshore exploration and production operations. The Polar Epsilon and Polar Epsilon-2 applied…

About half a million barrels of oil is extracted each day from Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay oilfields. One of its drilling sites, Endicott, is located on a spit of land connected by the gravel Prudhoe Bay road system and is normally accessible by truck – until recently, when the road was washed out. Faced with the dilemma of how to get workers, food and supplies to the work site, Hilcorp, a privately-held exploration and production companies in the U.S., turned to Crowley and its hovercraft, Arctic Hawk.

Noble Drilling (U.S.) LLC was charged with environmental and maritime crimes for operating the drill ship Noble Discoverer and the drilling unit Kulluk in violation of federal law in Alaska in 2012, the Department of Justice announced. Under the terms of a plea agreement filed in federal court today, Noble will plead guilty to eight felony offenses, pay $12.2 million dollars in fines and community service payments, implement a comprehensive Environmental Compliance Plan, and will be placed on probation for four years. In addition, Noble’s parent corporation, Noble Corporation plc, headquartered in London, England, will implement an Environmental…

FEI QEMSCAN WellSite expands to onsite core analysis 
with system delivery to Kirk Petrophysics. The QEMSCAN® WellSite™ analysis system is an advanced onsite core analysis system that provides fast support for critical decisions in formation evaluation and drilling operations. Core analysis is an essential component of formation evaluation used by geologists and engineers to determine the production potential of a well and to manage drilling and completion operations. Having this…

Jackup drilling rig successfully navigated through Cook Inlet. Foss Maritime Co. tugs Justine Foss and Jeffrey Foss have completed a successful tow of a jackup drilling rig to its winter harbor in Port Graham, Alaska. The Spartan 151 jackup drilling rig was moved from its drill site at Nikiski, in the Cook Inlet, which becomes choked with ice during the winter. Gary Faber, president and COO of Foss Maritime, said the successful tow underscores the company's competence in navigating…

The Kiwi well in the Egypt’s El Dabaa Licence (Block 9) was completed this week and the Discoverer Americas drillship will soon head back to the US Gulf of Mexico. The exploration well targeted the Kiwi prospect in the El Dabaa licence, located in the Mediterranean west of the Nile Delta, with a water depth of around 2,700 metres at the drill site. Extensive logging has been performed in the well, and preliminary results show that the well is dry. The offshore operations were…

Despite harsh weather and ocean conditions, and complex geological characteristics of its drill site, the deep-sea drilling vessel Chikyu, for the first time in the history of scientific ocean drilling, conducted riser-drilling operations to drill successfully down to a depth of 1,603.7 meters beneath the seafloor (at water depth of 2,054 meters). Engaged in the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) Expedition 319, the Chikyu is drilling deep into the upper portion of the great Nankai Trough earthquake zone to gain insights into geological formations and stress-strain characteristics.

The 2003 workboat construction market had its ups and downs and at best has given mixed signals about 2004 and beyond. Among the various workboat vessel segments, passenger vessels, excluding ferries and inland waterway vessels such as tugs and push boats, are in a static mode. Vessels will be built in 2004, but at a pace constant with years past. Some markets such as the building of patrol boats and other vessels with national security implications appear are sure bet winners for 2004 with several shipyards with large contracts that have deliveries stretched out for two years or more in some cases. Another market that continues to grow is high-speed aluminum passenger ferry and the slower passenger/vehicle ferries.

In 1982, 2-D (two-dimensional) seismographic technology was the hot and newest technique being used to locate oil and gas. Geophysicists, along with drill rigs, geophones and computers, were traversing both land and water in the petroleum belt to locate what lay beneath the Earth's surface. Typically, the offshore exploration using this technology would require chartering vessels, which were available near the proximity of the work site. Often, this entailed the use of fishing type vessels, which were designed for the harvest of commercial fisheries. In South Louisiana, one such owner of this type of vessel was Ernie Geraci, (president-Shallow Draft Elevating Boats, Inc.) whose boat Princess Amanda was well known by the seismic crews for its speed and handling.

Lease Sale held in New Orleans this past August. which were awarded at a total cost of approximately $0.6 million dollars. gas pay. water. planned drill site for ATP's High Island Block A-392 development. Stated Senior Vice President Gerald W.