Qatar Petroleum takes eight jack-up rigs for North Field Expansion project

Qatar Petroleum has awarded contracts for a total of eight offshore jack-up drilling rigs required for the North Field Expansion (NFE) Project offshore Qatar. 

According to a Wednesday statement by QP, the drilling rigs are planned to be mobilized and ready for drilling activities starting from January 2020.

Contracts for six of the eight rigs were awarded to Gulf Drilling International (GDI), while the contracts for the remaining two rigs were awarded to Northern Offshore Drilling Operations Limited, operating out of the United States of America.

In a separate statement on Wednesday, GDI said that it would finalize an agreement with Seadrill to provide these jack-up rigs to QP under the term of their existing Strategic Cooperation Agreement.

The first two rigs contracted for a firm duration of three years are scheduled to start operations in 1Q 2020, the third rig contracted for a firm duration of two years is scheduled to begin operations in 2Q 2020 and the last two rigs contracted for a firm duration of three years will start operations in 3Q 2020.

Additionally, a jack-up drilling rig currently contracted with Qatargas that has available options is scheduled to be slotted into the NFE drilling program around 2Q 2020 as the sixth rig from GDI.

QP stated that the contracts were awarded for committed terms ranging from two to four years, with exercisable options to extend the drilling program durations if required.

The drilling program planned for the eight rigs is a major component of the expansion project to increase Qatar’s LNG production capacity from 77 MTPA to 110 MTPA. The scope includes the drilling and completion of 80 new wells from eight wellhead platform locations.

Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, the Minister of State for Energy Affairs, the President & CEO of Qatar Petroleum, said: “This award package is the latest in a series of steps in Qatar Petroleum’s plan to execute the North Field Expansion project. We are pleased to have our National Drilling company GDI take part in this important project.”

Qatargas is entrusted with executing this mega-project on behalf of Qatar Petroleum.

Contract awards for jacket fabrication were already made earlier in April 2019. Namely, McDermott was awarded a contract worth between $50 million and $250 million to build eight new offshore jackets for the North Field Expansion Project.

In addition, Qatar Petroleum in April issued an ‘invitation to tender’ for the reservation of ship construction capacity required for the LNG carrier fleet for its North Field Expansion Project. This LNG ship-building campaign is expected to initially deliver 60 LNG carriers, with a potential to exceed 100 new LNG carriers over the next decade.

Offshore Energy Today Staff

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