Borr Drilling’s jack-up rig spins the drill bit at another well on oil field offshore Africa

Oslo-listed oil and gas E&P player BW Energy has started drilling the next well on its agenda at an oil field in the Dussafu license off the coast of Gabon, Africa, with a jack-up rig owned by Borr Drilling, an offshore drilling contractor.

Following an oil discovery on the northern flank of the Hibiscus field in May 2024, BW Energy proceeded to conclude the drilling and the logging of the DHIBM-7P pilot well, confirming a substantial oil discovery with good reservoir quality and a material uplift to the Hibiscus area.

The well, drilled to a total depth of 3,941 meters with Borr Drilling’s Norve jack-up rig, is located around 1.5 kilometers north-northwest of the MaBoMo production platform. The operator has started drilling the DHIBM-7H production well with the same rig, targeting the recently discovered Hibiscus Northern Flank.

Once the work at this well has been completed, the Norve rig will undertake well workovers and electrical submersible pump (ESP) replacements, as delivery of all conventional ESP systems and spares has been secured. Upon conclusion of the current campaign, all wells are expected to have conventional ESP systems installed.

The ongoing activities are part of the Hibiscus/Ruche development project, located about 20 kilometers northwest of the Tortue field, which targets the Hibiscus and Ruche fields offshore Gabon. BW Energy has a 73.5% stake in the Dussafu permit and Panoro Energy holds the remaining 17.5% participating interest. 

The DRM-3H production well on the Ruche field was completed in April, encountering good quality oil-saturated reservoir in the Gamba formation. This well will be put onstream in the current campaign with a new conventional ESP.

Furthermore, the DHBSM-2H production well, targeting the recently discovered northeast extension of the Hibiscus South field, was put onstream at rates over 6,500 bopd in line with expectations and is the first to be completed with the new ESP system.

BW Energy and Panoro recently extended the contract for the Norve jack-up drilling rig until February 2025 to ensure that their drilling campaign would result in a total of eight new production wells across the Hibiscus, Hibiscus South, and Ruche fields, in addition to the six pre-existing production wells at the Tortue field.

The oil produced at this project is transported by pipeline to the FPSO BW Adolo for processing and storage before being offloaded to export tankers.

According to Panoro, the Bourdon prospect test well (DBM-1) will be the last operation in the ongoing campaign in early 2025, enabling the gross production at Dussafu to reach 40,000 bopd once all wells are completed.