Equinor picks up consent to use Maersk rig at Gina Krog

Norwegian oil major Equinor has received consent from the offshore safety body, the Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA), for drilling of two wells on the Gina Krog field off Norway, using the Maersk Integrator rig.

The wells, designated 15/6-B-9 and 15/6-B-19, are located on the Gina Krog oil and gas field the North Sea. The field spans across four licenses and is operated by Equinor.

The Norwegian oil major holds a 58.7 percent interest in the field while the partners KUFPEC Norway, PGNiG Upstream, and Aker BP hold 30, 8, and 3.3 percent respectively.

Announcing its consent for the well on Monday, the safety watchdog said that the drilling was planned to last a total of 101 days.

Equinor will use the Maersk Integrator jack-up rig for the drilling operations which was delivered by the Keppel Shipyard in Singapore in 2014. It is an XL Enhanced ultra-harsh environment jack-up rig that is customized for the North Sea. Maersk Integrator was issued with an Acknowledgement of Compliance (AOC) by the PSA in June 2015.

In recent news regarding the rig, Aker BP hired the Maersk Integrator for work under a one-year contract scheduled to start in June 2019.

As for the field, Gina Krog came on stream in June 2017. It is located about 30 kilometers northwest of Sleipner and is tied into Sleipner A and uses processing capacity on the platform and existing pipelines for sending the gas to the marked in Europe.