Offshore staff
LONDON/OSLO, Norway — EnQuest has contracted Dolphin Drilling’s semisub Borgland Dolphin for a firm 137-day drilling program in the UK North Sea.
The arrangement includes a contribution toward the rig’s reactivation costs. EnQuest has a further option, to be confirmed within 90 days of contract signing, to extend the work scope under a strategic alliance over a five-year period, which would give Dolphin schedule flexibility.
The contract will allow the company to strategically position the rig for work in the North Sea, where it foresees multiple concerted production and development well drilling and P&A campaigns over the next few years.
Dolphin is also in talks with other potential clients on setting up flexible contracts that would allow this type of work to be planned and executed in clusters to cut costs.
Meanwhile, EnQuest has issued an update on its operations in the UK North Sea and offshore Peninsular Malaysia.
At the Magnus Field in the East Shetland Basin, a North West Magnus injector well was completed in May followed by the B6 infill well in August. A currently drilling sidetrack well should be completed shortly, followed by a well perforation program.
During first-quarter 2024, the focus will be on delivering the five-yearly recertification of the Magnus platform rig.
Further into the future, the company has procured a MODU for two planned wells on the Kraken Field in the same region in 2025.
At the CNOOC-operated Golden Eagle Field in the central UK North Sea, drilling started in October of the first well of a new four-well campaign, which should run until mid-2024. The well should come online in late December.
To the north, EnQuest is progressing P&A operations at the Heather and Thistle fields, with 11 wells P&A’d at Heather this year and a further 12 at Thistle. Operations on another Heather well should finish by year-end 2023, along with others on two more Thistle wells.
The combined tally of 25 wells would exceed the record for a multi-asset P&A campaign in the northern North Sea of 24 wells, achieved by EnQuest in 2022. Planning continues for the P&A of 33 subsea wells at the company’s Alma/Galia, Dons and Broom fields.
Finally, EnQuest plans three infill wells and three well workovers at PM8/Seligi offshore Malaysia in 2024, with the rig due to mobilize by the end of first-quarter 2024.
11.28.2023
