Island Drilling firms up North Sea deal with Cairn

Offshore drilling contractor Island Drilling Company has signed a contract with Capricorn Norge, a subsidiary of Cairn Energy, for drilling operations in the North Sea offshore Norway.

Island Drilling received a letter of intent from Capricorn Norge for one well on Duncan prospect in Block 35/8 and two optional wells in August 2019. The letter has now been converted into a contract.

Capricorn Norge is a subsidiary of Cairn Energy and the operator of License 880, which contains the Duncan prospect, holding a 60% interest.

The oil company has chosen the Island Innovator semi-submersible rig for this scope and Island Drilling Management will be responsible for the operation of the rig.

Drilling is scheduled to start in H1 2020. Bassoe Offshore estimates that the rig’s dayrate for this contract will be around $210,000.

The Island Innovator has recently drilled and completed the Howick exploration well, located West of Shetland, for CNOOC. The well was dry.

After this, the rig is scheduled to drill one well in the Norwegian Sea. Namely, Island back in May 2019 signed a contract with Faroe for a well on PL888 Canela license, Block 6507/7, located west of Heidrun field offshore Norway. Faroe was later renamed to DNO North Sea following a takeover by DNO. According to Bassoe, this contract starts in late November and it is scheduled to end in late January 2020.

Island Innovator is a 6th generation semi-submersible drilling rig of a Global Maritime GM4000 type, built by the COSCO Shipyard in China in 2012. The rig was designed to operate in water depths up to 1200 meters on the Norwegian Continental Self and world wide harsh environments.

Offshore Energy Today Staff

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