Hunter Queen on black gold hunt: All systems go for rig’s multi-well drilling campaign off Brazil

Brazilian oil and gas company PRIO, formerly known as PetroRio, has received the go-ahead from the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Natural Renewable Resources (Ibama) for its offshore drilling plans in the Campos Basin, Espírito Santo. A sixth-generation semi-submersible drilling rig will carry out the planned six-well drilling program off the coast of Brazil.

PRIO, which received a drilling license for the Wahoo field on February 28 from Ibama, has begun mobilizing the Hunter Queen rig to start the multi-well drilling campaign that entails six wells, including four production and two injection wells. The project, with a total investment of $850 million, is expected to produce up to 40,000 barrels of oil per day.

Previously, the company planned to spud the Wahoo well in early 2024, a process expected to last until the end of the year, with the first oil expected between July and August. The assets that would be used to execute the project, aside from the Hunter Queen drilling rig, include a subsea installation vessel, both owned by the firm, and several partner vessels for installing subsea lines and equipment. The start of gas commercialization from Frade/Wahoo and Albacora Leste was also on the 2024 agenda.

Roberto Monteiro, PRIO’s CEO, commented: “Wahoo is our priority and a project we have been preparing for for a long time. In addition to increasing our production by up to 40 thousand barrels per day, its operation will boost the economy with jobs and, in the future, with the generation of more than R$4 billion in royalties for Espírito Santo and the Union over its lifetime.”

While the firm underlines that the project had already generated around R$1 billion in the local supply chain before the operation stage, the next step is the evaluation of the environmental impact study, seen as crucial for issuing the preliminary license and the license to install the subsea infrastructure that will enable production.

PRIO claims that Wahoo will be its first fully developed field, where it has set its mind on a tie-back to existing floating production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) vessel as a solution for development. This subsea tie-back of approximately 30 kilometers in length will enable the production from the field.

The tie-back will connect Wahoo to the FPSO Frade, which has a processing capacity of 100,000 barrels of oil per day. Following the acquisition in March 2021, the field was declared commercially viable in December of the same year, after feasibility studies. While there are already exploratory wells that prove the presence of oil, the previous operator did not develop the infrastructure necessary for production.

Francilmar Fernandes, PRIO’s Operations Director, highlighted: “While we take the next steps regarding licensing, we continue to make adjustments to the Frade FPSO to accommodate the new production. The interconnection with the FPSO Frade is crucial for the success of the project, because without this structure, Wahoo would be economically unviable.”

The Hunter Queen sixth-generation semisubmersible drilling rig, part of PRIO’s assets since July 2022, completed its first operation at the Frade field, which underwent a major revitalization overhaul in 2023.

“The drilling rig will be used in all our fields from now on, whether for drilling or maintenance of wells and production. It will have a strategic role at the start of operations in the Wahoo Field, where we expect to drill four production wells and two injector wells,” Fernandes previously emphasized.

The rig, which can work in water depths of up to 3,000 meters and drill up to 10,000 meters, can perform maintenance operations and improvements that are necessary on all of PRIO’s offshore fields.