EnQuest and Dolphin Drilling have agreed to terminate a contract for the Borgland Dolphin semisubmersible rig at the Kraken heavy oil field in the UK’s East Shetland Basin.
The decision was taken after the partners in Kraken could not reach agreement on the next-phase drilling program. EnQuest now plans to reschedule the Kraken infill wells as part of a wider drilling campaign in the North Sea in 2026.
Dolphin said EnQuest agreed to pay a $20.75-million cancellation fee before the end of November.
Currently Borgland Dolphin is at Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, Spain. Dolphin will now put a planned class renewal on hold while assessing alternative opportunities.
CEO Bjørnar Iversen said, “We continue to focus our efforts on securing long-term backlog for the Borgland. The timing of the termination allows us to pause the special periodic survey, improve liquidity and carefully plan the next steps.”
In its operational update, EnQuest added that an unplanned outage at the third-party Ninian Central platform in the northern UK North Sea had led to a shut-in of all system users, including production from the Magnus field.
EnQuest led a short dive support vessel campaign to inspect and repair the subsea hydraulic system, and production has since been restored to pre-outage levels.
The company has also planned flare gas recovery investment at Magnus to enhance performance and reduce emissions.
