Equinor books COSL rig to drill up to nine wells

Norwegian energy giant Equinor has awarded COSL Offshore Management a contract to drill four firm wells on Statfjord Øst field off Norway with the COSLPromoter rig.

The contract, which is scheduled to start in the spring of 2023, has options for drilling five wells for Statfjord satellites afterwards. The value is calculated at around $56 million for the fixed part of the contract, which has an estimated duration of 220 days, Equinor informed on Thursday.

The value includes drilling and completion services, fuel, treatment of wastewater, handling of cuttings and upgrading of the rig by installing an automatic drilling control system. Additional services include running of the casing, remote-operated vehicle (ROV), mobilisation and demobilisation, calculated at around $4 million.

After the preliminarily planned work programme has been completed, the intention is to extend the cooperation by continuing options. Prior to the planned work programme, options for any other tasks have been agreed upon. After drilling for Equinor on the Troll field from April 2013 to April 2021, the COSLPromoter rig is currently in hot lay-up at the CCB base outside Bergen.

Mette Ottøy, chief procurement officer (CPO), said: “With this contract, Equinor shows continued demand for smaller rigs on the Norwegian Continental Shelf as long as they are competitive and fit for the required drilling operations. The rig will be anchored at Statfjord Øst, helping maintain a low carbon emission level. We are pleased that COSL assumes responsibility for the fuel consumption, and they are working on several technologies and measures to reduce their emissions. This work will be important to us going forward.”

Erik G. Kirkemo, senior vice president of drilling & well operations, pointed out that the rig provided deliveries to Equinor for eight years on the Troll field.

“We will focus on simple and standardised well solutions and successful improvements, in addition to proving that mature fields can also offer profitable production for many more years and hence contribute to production to 2040 from the Statfjord area,” he says.

Partners of the Statfjord Øst licence are Equinor Energy (31.6875 per cent – operator), Petoro (30 per cent), Vår Energi (20.55 per cent), Spirit Energy Norway (11.5625 per cent), Idemitsu Petroleum Norge (4.8 per cent), and Wintershall Dea Norge (1.4 per cent).

COSL has also recently won a new contract from Ithaca Energy for drilling operations on the Abigail well and the Captain phase II subsea development in the central North Sea on the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS).