From a decommissioning in Dutch and U.K. waters to drilling and development contracts in the Middle East, below is a compilation of the latest headlines in the E&P space within the past week.

Activity headlines

Woodside publishes Browse EIS

Woodside has published the final environmental impact statement (EIS) for the proposed Browse to North West Shelf (NWS) project. It includes responses to public comments from earlier in the process. 

The proposed Browse to NWS Project would send feed gas from fields in the offshore Browse Basin to be processed at the NWS Project’s Karratha Gas Plant. Production capacity is 11.4 million tonnes per year of LNG, LPG and domestic gas.

The next step in the process is for the Australian Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) to report its recommendations to the Minister. 

Neptune to decommission Dutch, UK wells

Neptune Energy awarded a $30 million decommissioning contract to Well-Safe Solutions for a campaign covering more than 20 wells located across eight Dutch and U.K. North Sea fields.

It is the first multi-region, multiwell decommissioning campaign Neptune has awarded to a single rig contractor, and the operator expects this to significantly reduce time and costs associated with the work.

Well-Safe Solutions’ Well-Safe Protector jackup will plug and abandon at least four subsea and 17 platform wells located in Dutch and U.K. waters.

The Well-Safe Protector is scheduled to mobilize in the first quarter of 2023 to the Dutch and U.K. sectors for P&A operations in fields including D18a-A, G14-B, K12-S2, L10-S2 and K9c-A in the Netherlands and the Neptune-operated Minke and Orca fields.

Neptune has the option to extend the one-year contract by a further two years, via eight three-month extension.

Dry holes for Equinor, ConocoPhillips

The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) said Equinor Energy and ConocoPhillips Skandinavia AS both reported dry holes in their production licenses (PLs)

Equinor Energy said the wildcat well 30/3-11 S in its operated PL 1104 was dry with traces of petroleum in all exploration targets, according to the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD).

The well was drilled about 18 km north of the Oseberg Øst Field in the North Sea, aiming to prove petroleum in Middle Jurassic reservoir rocks (the Brent Group).

The well, drilled by the Deepsea Stavanger to 4,593 m below sea level in 185 m of water, encountered about 120 m of sandstone with poor reservoir quality in the Tarbert, Ness and Etive formations as well as about 75 m of sandstone were encountered with poor reservoir quality in the Oseberg Formation.

This is the first exploration well in PL 1104, which was awarded in APA 2021. It has been permanently plugged and abandoned.

The rig is now moving on to drill wildcat well 6607/12-5 in PL 943 in the Norwegian Sea, where Equinor Energy AS is the operator.

ConocoPhillips’s wildcat well 25/7-10 in PL 782 S, was dry, with oil shows. Interest holders in the license will assess well results regarding the license’s prospectivity.

The well, drilled by the Transocean Norge about 30 km northwest of the Balder Field in the central part of the North Sea, aimed to prove petroleum in Upper Jurassic reservoir rocks (the Intra-Draupne Formation).

The well encountered thin sandstone layers totaling about 14 m in the Draupne Formation, with poor reservoir quality. Oil was collected from an isolated sandstone layer with limited extension, which is why no recoverable volumes can be estimated from this interval.

In the Heather Formation (Middle Jurassic), the well encountered 29 m of sandstone with poor reservoir quality.

This is the second well in PL 782 S, which was awarded in APA 2014.

The well 25/7-10 was drilled to a vertical depth of 4470 m below sea level in 127 m of water depth, and was terminated in the Heather Formation in the Middle Jurassic. It has been permanently plugged and abandoned.

Contracts and company news

Weatherford wins ADNOC work

Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. (ADNOC) awarded Weatherford International plc a five-year framework agreement valued at more than $400 million for directional drilling and logging-while-drilling services. ADNOC has an option to extend the contract for two years.

Tag to develop ARF reservoir in Egypt

Badr Petroleum Co. (BPCO) awarded TAG Oil Ltd. a petroleum services agreement (PSA) to develop the unconventional Abu Roash F (ARF) reservoir in the Badr Oil Field (BED-1). The field is a 107-sq-km concession in the Western Desert of Egypt.

A Shell Oil and Egyptian General Petroleum Corp. (EGPC) joint venture discovered the Badr Oil Field in 1982. There has been significant historical production across the concession from conventional reservoirs of light oil and associated natural gas through primary development of the Kharita, Bahariya and certain Abu Roash sandstone formations. The ARF reservoir produced conventionally from some wells with considerable initial oil rates but has declined rapidly as this is the nature of such tight reservoirs.

The target ARF zone is a deep, tight, low porosity, low permeability carbonate reservoir with varied fluid characteristics across BED-1. TAG Oil has determined that there is a high probability for successful commercial development of the ARF reservoir through long-reach horizontal wells, hydraulic fracture stimulation and potentially other enhanced oil recovery production techniques. The ARF zone has not been commercially developed under conventional completion technology by previous operators. 

KCA reports land drilling contracts

KCA Deutag reported winning new contracts, extensions and options worth around $112 million, primarily related to land rigs in Saudi Arabia and Oman. The company announced the deals as work continues to close out the acquisition of Saipem’s land rig business.

In Saudi Arabia, KCA has won multiple one-year extensions worth a combined total of $35 million. In Oman, a one-year contract with a new client, which includes a further one-year option, in addition to contract extensions and options with existing clients on multiple rigs have delivered an additional $70.5 million. In Europe, KCA Deutag has been awarded almost $6 million in new contracts in Germany and the Netherlands.

Petrobras extends Siem Helix 2

Helix Energy Solutions Group Inc. announced winning a two-year extension of its well intervention charter and services contract with Petrobras for the Siem Helix 2 well intervention vessel offshore Brazil. The extension is scheduled to conclude in December 2024 and directly follows Helix’s current contracts with Petrobras.

Enverus launches data integration offering

Enverus announced it has launched its Fusion Connect, which the company says provides customers a new way to integrate their proprietary data with Enverus data inside PRISM, Enverus’ energy decision-making platform. The company says early adopters of Fusion Connect are saving time, resources and improving multi-disciplinary collaboration.

Fusion Connect makes it possible to compare proprietary data based on their own internal calculations, such as internal EUR and well landing intervals, with unbiased third-party data to verify findings or to identify outliers or data gaps.

“Not only is data integration currently slow, it’s not built for cross-team collaboration either, creating silos within the customer organization,” said Colin Westmoreland, chief innovation officer at Enverus. “Assets are then not valued correctly, peer benchmarking is ineffective and asset design changes aren’t optimal or—even worse—never identified at all. Fusion Connect solves all of that and will benefit an entire organization including supply chain, operations, investors, land management and beyond.”

Tendeka’s NCS contract extended

Tendeka said it has signed a new multi-year contract extension to exclusively deliver standardized sand-face completion equipment across all Equinor’s assets on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS). The agreement, which also includes options for further extension periods, will see Tendeka manage the complete supply chain of sand and inflow control equipment through standardization.

Shearwater announces deals

Shearwater GeoServices and WesternGeco have signed a multiyear global frame agreement for seismic acquisition services. Additionally, Shearwater won a will survey the Bonaparte Basin offshore Australia, aiming to provide an improved subsurface image of the eastern flank of the Vulcan Sub-basin and Londonderry High to improve understanding of the subsurface, which to-date has been limited due to legacy surveys being unable to resolve shallow carbonate intervals and complex faulting. 

The survey will last about two-and-a-half months and will be conducted by the Geo Coral, equipped with a multi-component sensor system. The survey is subject to regulatory approvals in Australia.