Gas Discovery News

Esgian highlights several new contracts in its Week 39 Rig Analytics Market Roundup.Report SummaryContractsMarket sources indicate that ADNOC has exercised an extension option for the 350-ft jackup drilling rig Aryabhatt 1 in Abu Dhabi.Petrobras has awarded two floating rig contracts to Constellation Oil Services for work at the Roncador field in the Campos Basin offshore Brazil. Valued at $1 billion, the two contracts will see Constellation 10,000-ft drillship Laguna Star and Hanwha Drilling 12,000-ft newbuild Tidal Action operate for Petrobras for around 2.5 years.

Esgian has no rig contracts to announced but provides an update on rig moves and drilling operations in the US Gulf of Mexico, Canada, Morocco and Norway in its Week 38 Rig Analytics Market Roundup.Report SummaryDrilling Activity and DiscoveriesExxonMobil has abandoned the Persephone C-54 well on EL 1169 in the Orphan Basin offshore Newfoundland, Canada.Seadrill’s 12,000-ft drillship West Neptune has resumed drilling operations on LLOG’s Who Dat South exploration well in the US Gulf of Mexico…

Esgian provides an update on new contract awards for floating rigs in its Week 37 Rig Analytics Market Roundup.Report SummaryContractsTransocean Ltd. has secured a 365-day contract for the 12,000-ft drillship Deepwater Atlas with bp in the US GOM.Norwegian operator Aker BP has extended the contract for Saipem’s 10,000-ft semisub Scarabeo 8 in Norway.Drilling Activity and DiscoveriesEquinor has found hydrocarbons at the Sitka C-02 exploration well in the Flemish Pass area offshore Newfoundland & Labrador…

Esgian provides an update on plans for Petronas to return to the deep waters off Mexico in its Week 35 Rig Analytics Market Roundup.Report SummaryContractsMalaysia's Velesto said Monday it has secured a Letter of Award for its 350-ft jackup Naga 3 from Vietnam-based Thang Long Joint Operating Company (TLJOC).Dolphin Drilling’s Letter of Intent (LoI) with an undisclosed operator in the UK for its 1,500-ft semisub Borgland Dolphin has lapsed and the rig is now available for new…

OMV (Norge) has successfully completed drilling of a deepwater exploration well in the Norwegian Sea with preliminary estimated total recoverable gas volumes of between 30 and 140 million barrels of oil equivalent (mn boe).The deepwater wildcat well 6605/6-1 S is located 300km west of the Norwegian mainland at a water depth of 1,064 meters. The gas discovery, in the Haydn/Monn exploration prospects of PL 1194, is approximately 65 kilometers from the existing infrastructure of…

Esgian provides an update on the second round of jackup suspensions in Saudi Arabia in its Week 32 Rig Analytics Market Roundup.Report SummaryContractsArabian Drilling has confirmed that Saudi Aramco has initiated discussions with the drilling contractor over the suspension of an additional leased offshore rig, following an initial round of contract suspensions that began earlier this year. Arabian Drilling has not stated which of its jackups is the target of the current suspension discussions.ADES does not expect new contract suspensions for its fleet by Saudi Aramco this year.

Russia has begun shipping oil and refined products to Bolivia, helping to tackle a fuel shortage in the country, and expanding its presence in Latin America as Western sanctions have forced Moscow to seek new markets, traders and shipping data show.After the full EU embargo on importing Russian oil products took effect in February 2023, Brazil has become one of the biggest importers of Russian fuel. Russia has also increased exports to Venezuela, Jamaica and Cuba.According to LSEG…

Esgian provides an update on drilling activity in its Week 26 Rig Analytics Market Roundup.Report SummaryContractsVentura Offshore has been granted exclusive marketing rights from Hanwha Drilling LLC for the newbuild 12,000-ft 7th generation drillship, Tidal Action, for an ongoing tender process in Brazil.Transocean has announced a 365-day contract extension for the 12,000-ft drillship Deepwater Asgard with an independent operator in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.Northern Ocean Ltd.-owned 7…

Esgian provides an update on semisub activities in Norway and Australia in its Week 23 Rig Analytics Market Roundup.Report SummaryContractsTransocean has announced contract fixtures for three harsh environment (HE) semisubmersibles. Together, the fixtures represent approximately $161 million in firm contract backlog.Shelf Drilling has secured a 15-month award for the 357-ft jackup Shelf Drilling Tenacious for drilling operations offshore West Africa.Murphy Oil Corporation has exercised an option to extend the contract for the 12…

Esgian provides an update on Saudi suspensions in its Week 20 Rig Analytics Market Roundup.Report SummaryContractsDrilling contractor Arabian Drilling confirmed that the suspension of three contracts for its jackups with Saudi Aramco have yet to be finalised but are expected to take effect towards the end of the third quarter of 2024. CEO Ghassan Mirdad stated that the company is actively exploring opportunities to redeploy these rigs with other clients. Arabian Drilling announced…

Esgian reports fresh finds confirmed in Guyana, China and Norway in its Week 12 Rig Analytics Market Roundup.Report Outline:ContractsDolphin Drilling has announced the award of a $154 million drilling contract from India's exploration and production company, Oil India Limited (Oil India), to the 6,000-ft semisub Blackford Dolphin.Malaysian offshore drilling firm Velesto confirmed Friday it had recently secured long-term contract extensions for three of its jackup rigs with Petronas Carigali…

A promising area off Colombia's coast where Brazil state-run Petrobras is drilling this year could justify a large project to supply natural gas to the Andean country and for exports, Petrobras' head of exploration and production said on Wednesday.As oil production in Brazil's prolific presalt region is set to plateau in coming years, Petrobras is expanding its horizons to new frontiers including the Equatorial Margin, Colombia and Africa.At Colombia's Tayrona block, Petrobras…

Esgian reports that drilling contracts have been announced this week for operations in Brazil and the Philippines, and new discoveries have been confirmed in the UK and Namibia in its Week 11 Rig Analytics Market Roundup.ContractsCOSL Drilling has emerged as the winner for Petrobras' moored semisubmersible tender with the 4,600-ft Nanhai 8 (also known as Nan Hai Ba Hao).Noble has secured a high-dayrate drillship contract with Prime Energy in the Philippines.Drilling Activity and…

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…

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).

Cyprus wants to establish itself as a gateway from east Mediterranean gas resources to Europe via a shipping corridor of LNG carriers, its president said on Monday. Cyprus's new centrist government, which came to power in February, has cooled to the idea championed by its predecessors of an "EastMed" pipeline transferring gas to Europe.Instead, authorities now want to transport, via pipeline, natural gas from fields in the eastern Mediterranean to the island for use in domestic conventional power generation…

Lebanon and Israel are closer than ever to signing a deal demarcating their maritime border, opening the door to new oil and gas exploration, after years of U.S.-brokered negotiations.While limited in scope, the agreement is set to ease security and economic concerns in both countries, whose shared history is rife with hostility. The deal will only resolve a territorial dispute in the eastern tip of the Mediterranean sea and does not touch on their land borders, which are yet to be settled.Here are some details of the U.S.

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…

On 28 October 2019 oil giant BP announced a major gas discovery, Orca-1, exploration well in the BirAllah area off the coast of Mauritania.“The deepest and largest discovery so far this year, Rystad Energy estimates Orca-1 holds around 1.3 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe) of recoverable resources,” says Palzor Shenga, a senior analyst on Rystad Energy’s upstream team.Offshore continues to dominate exploration in 2019, both in terms of the number of discoveries and the volume of resources unearthed. Boosted by the find, Mauritania now ties Guyana for the second most discovered volumes this year, trailing closely behind Russia with 1.5 billion boe.“This type of significant discovery…

UK-based Reabold Resources said Rathlin Energy UK Ltd has signed a rig contract for the onshore UK West Newton appraisal well.The appraisal well at West Newton will have two objectives. The first objective is to appraise the Kirkham Abbey Formation gas discovery which has a 72 per cent. chance of success and an NPV of $185m.The second objective of the well is to test a deeper Cadeby Formation reef flank oil prospect, considered by Rathlin to have an NPV of $850m and a 24 per cent. chance of success.In line with Reabold's investment strategy, West Newton, in a success case, offers a fast pathway to monetisation through its proximity to existing gas pipelines and infrastructure.In 2017…

As Oceanology International celebrates its 50th Anniversary, Marine Technology Reporter explores half a century of subsea technology development and discovery. Oceanology International Americas runs February 25-27, 2019 in San Diego.When Oceanology launched in 1969 in the seaside resort of Brighton the world was a very different place. For a start, Brighton was home to the mods and rockers, who would square off against each other on the town’s elegant seafront. The British currency included shillings and ha’ pennies and man had yet to step foot on the moon.More crucially…

Australian energy company Senex Energy has successfully tested a gas exploration well in the Cooper Basin in South Australia.According to the Brisbane-based company The Gemba-1 well flowed 227,000 cubic metres (8 mcf) of gas per day over a period of a week."Senex Energy has successfully completed the initial flow test of the Gemba-1 gas exploration well in the Cooper Basin, with stabilised flow rates of approximately eight million standard cubic feet per day, plus associated liquids," said a stock exchange annoucement.Senex Managing Director and CEO Ian Davies said: “Senex is delivering on its strategy to become a material supplier of gas to the east coast market, and this Cooper Basin gas discovery adds another potential supply source from our growing portfolio.

U.S. oil firm Chevron will become the first oil major to formally exit the Norwegian continental shelf (NCS) as it transfers its last stake in an exploration license, according to a government letter.Oil majors, including Exxon Mobil, BP and Shell, have scaled down their presence in Norway by selling or merging their assets in the mature region to focus on new growth opportunities elsewhere.Chevron is also seeking to sell assets in the British North Sea in order to focus on growing U.S.