LONDON —Neptune Energy has contracted the Well-Safe Protector jackup rig to plug and abandon (P&A) multiple wells at eight fields in the UK and Dutch North Sea.
The one-year firm, $30-million contract—with an option for up to eight three-month extensions—covers operations on at least four subsea wells and 17 platform wells.
Well-Safe Protector will mobilize for the campaign in first-quarter 2023 on completion of a six-well P&A project for Ithaca Energy on the Anglia platform in the southern UK North Sea, due to start this fall.
The harsh environment, independent leg cantilever design jackup has an extensive history of work in the North Sea.
According to rig manager Duncan Morison, it provides a large volume of deck space for tubing, casing and conductor recovery, “allowing effective batch operations and helping our clients to realize considerable operational savings.”
Stuart Payne, director of Supply Chain, Decommissioning and HR at the UK’s North Sea Transition Authority, added, “We have consistently pressed operators and the supply chain to work in a collaborative way to form well decommissioning campaigns, which are more cost-efficient and help save time and lower emissions.
“The Well-Safe Protector’s upcoming mobilization for a multi-operator campaign is the latest encouraging sign that industry has got the message loud and clear. The cross-border element of this work also highlights the potential for exporting the considerable decommissioning expertise of the UK supply chain to other regions.”
This is Neptune’s first multi-region, multi-well decommissioning campaign award to a single rig contractor. The locations to be covered include the D18a-A, G14-B, K12-S2, L10-S2 and K9c-A in the Dutch sector and the Minke and Orca fields.
09.20.2022
