Drilling Rigs NEWS

Weatherford International has completed its sale of land drilling operations in Kuwait. The company has sold 12 drilling rigs to ADES International Holding for $123 million and the delivery of two idle land drilling rigs in southern Iraq are pending. Weatherford’s subsidiary signed a definitive agreement with ADES in July 2018 for the sale of its Algeria, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. It also included two idle rigs in Iraq.

India’s state-run oil and gas company, ONGC is planning on buying 27 drilling rigs that would cost Rs 3,000-3,500 crore. The new purchase has been planned to replace nearly half of its ageing onland rigs. ONGC has floated a tender for the same in search of interested suppliers. The new rigs will replace some of the ageing fleet of 67 rigs currently operating at the company’s offshore fields.

US oil firms added oil rigs for the second time in the last three weeks since June due to pipeline constraints in the country’s biggest oilfield. Oil companies added 7 oil rigs in the week that ended on Sept. 14, the biggest weekly increase in a month. The total rig count reached 867, oilfield services giant BHGE said in its report on Friday.

Supermajor Total yesterday forwarded a “final offer” to workers union, Unite for suspending strikes on the North Sea rigs. Talks between Unite and Total were held yesterday at Acas, the independent arbitration service provider arranging the talks. The Unite trade union members will vote on the deal on Monday, while agreeing to call off industrial action on the day. A spokesman for Total E&P confirmed handing out revised final offer.

Maersk Drilling and Aker BP entered into a one-year contract to install Maersk Integrator on the Norwegian continental shelf from June 2019. An ultra-harsh environment jackup rig customised for the North Sea, the Maersk Integrator will be the first in the line of rigs to be fully contracted under the scope of the alliance formed between Aker BP, Maersk Drilling and Halliburton in 2017.

Transocean announced that it will acquire Cyprus’ drilling contractor, Ocean Rig in a £2.1 billion deal. It informed that the deal will be a “combination of cash on hand and fully committed financing provided by Citi”. After the completion of this procurement, shareholders of Transocean and Ocean rig will own 79% and 21% in the shared company. Currently, Ocean Rig owns 2 harsh environment semisubmersibles and 9 high-specification ultra-deepwater drillships.

Maersk Drilling has signed a 2-year contract with Aker BP for the re-activation and quick deployment of the jackup rig Maersk Reacher. The rig has to be installed in the Norwegian segment of the North Sea. Maersk Reacher has to be deployed as an accommodation rig. Operations on rig are estimated to commence by October 2018.

Oil prices dropped today amidst reports of a dip in Saudi crude production. Brent crude futures were priced at $73.68/barrel, up by 0.6%. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were up 0.5%, at $68.86 a barrel. Drilling rigs count has been falling in the US through the past three weeks due to slow growth rate and falling oil prices.

Canada-based Husky Energy has granted a one-year contract extension to Transocean’s Henry Goodrich drilling rig. The semi-submersible rig is currently deployed in the Atlantic Ocean offshore Canada. The assessed contract backlog is approximately $100 million, implying that the dayrate is around $274.000. The extended will keep the rig busy until late 2019.

British oil firm, Savannah Petroleum spudded a fourth well, located in Agadem Basin on Friday. Savannah has deployed Rig GW-215 on the Eridal-1 well to carry out the drilling activity till a depth of 2592 metres. The operations are part of Savannah’s current campaign in Nigeria. The Eridal-1 well drilling activities are expected for completion in a month.

Houston based National Oilwell Varco has reduced the effect its first quarter losses by procuring $1.80 billion order in a joint venture with Saudi Aramco. CEO, NOV appreciated his team for delivering double digit sales growth throughout the second quarter. NOV suffered a deficit of £170m last year, but reported first half pre-tax losses of only £25.2 million this year.

Leading offshore drilling service provider, Transocean yesterday released the fleet status report for this quarter, which contains the current status, and contract information of the drilling rigs of the firm. The company’s present backlog according to the report is $11.7 billion. The four floaters, Deepwater Discovery, Deepwater Frontier, Deepwater Millennium and Songa Trym have been abdicated by the company in an environment-friendly manner.

E&P firm, EnQuest yesterday received a HSE notice, following failure in safely lifting and moving a rise that, reportedly, missed workers while dropping on the Magnus Platform. The notice claimed that EnQuest exposed staff to “serious risk”. The Magnus platform operates in the North Sea and has been into production since 1983. An EnQuest spokesperson confirmed the incident occurrence, stating that investigation is underway.

Petrogas and Wintershall have extended the contract of Maersk Drilling, allowing the two jack-up rigs, Maersk Resolute and Maersk Resolve to continue their operations in the North Sea. Maersk Resolute has got a 56-day extension by Petrogas to continue its operation while Maersk Resolve has been awarded a 21-day extension by Wintershall to complete its work in the North Sea.

ADES has entered into an acquisition agreement amounting to $287.5m to buy Weatherford subsidiary’s land drilling rig operations in Algeria, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. The agreement will give ADES the ownership of 31 land drilling rigs and related drilling contracts. ADES International Holding has said that the deal will expand its total fleet and more than double its operational fleet. The deal is expected to close by 2018.

Malaysia-based, Velesto Energy Bhd(VEB) has been awarded a $31.038 offshore drilling contract by Roc Oil (Sarawak) Sdn Bhd. Velesto will deploy its NAGA 4 rig for Roc Oil’s contract. NAGA 4, a premium independent-leg cantilever jack-up drilling rig, possesses a drilling depth capacity of 30,000 feet and 400 feet of rated operating water depth. The contract will most probably begin in August for 11 firm wells.

Owing to stability issues in drilling operations, Kosmos Energy Ltd has decided to respud its Anapai-1 well, offshore Suriname. The well design has been altered to address the shallow borehole stability issues and drilling should take 50-60 days. The Anapai drilling venture has already seen a US $20 million investment from Kosmos Energy Ltd, where the company has a 33.3% stake alongside Chevron which owns 50%.

Faroe Petroleum has announced that both new infill wells drilled by the oil and gas firm dealing principally in exploration this year on Tambar field in Norway (Faroe 45%), have now been brought successfully into production.