ConocoPhillips to spud Norwegian Sea well with Transocean rig

U.S.-based energy giant ConocoPhillips has been granted consent for exploration drilling in the Norwegian Sea by Norway’s offshore petroleum safety regulator. The activities will be carried out using a Transocean-owned rig.

The Petroleum Safety Authority informed on Monday that it had given ConocoPhillips consent for exploration drilling in block 6306/3 in the Norwegian Sea.

The drilling programme for the well 6306/3-2 entails the drilling of an exploration well in production licence 935, which was awarded on 2 March 2018 and is valid until 2 March 2026.

ConocoPhillips Skandinavia is the operator of the licence with an ownership interest of 40 per cent and other licensees are Lundin Energy Norway (20 per cent), Petoro (20 per cent), and Petrolia NOCO (20 per cent).

The company is targeting a prospect named Bounty and drilling operations will be conducted in water depths of 214 meters.

The drilling operations will be carried out by the Transocean Norge semi-submersible rig, which was built by Sembcorp Marine at the Jurong Shipyard (JSPL) in Singapore between 2012 and 2016. The rig is owned and operated by Transocean and it received an Acknowledgement of Compliance (AoC) from the PSA in July 2019.

Back in June 2021, Transocean was awarded a contract for four wells with five one-well options for the Transocean Norge rig, which was expected to start in March 2022. The offshore drilling contractor’s fleet status report from April confirms this contract with ConocoPhillips – under a day rate of $280,000 – started in March 2022 and is scheduled to end in September 2022.

When it comes to ConocoPhillips’ other recent activities in the Norwegian Sea, it is worth noting that the energy giant delineated an oil discovery in late May 2022, constraining the recoverable hydrocarbon volume of the main segment.