Lundin cleared to drill well near Ivar Aasen field

Oil and gas company Lundin Energy Norway has been given a drilling permit to drill a new wildcat well in the North Sea, offshore Norway.

Under the permit, given to Lundin by the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD), the well will be drilled in production license 167 using Odfjell Drilling’s Deepsea Stavanger semi-submersible drilling rig.

Lundin is the operator with an ownership interest of 40 per cent and the other licensees are Equinor, Spirit Energy, and Aker BP with 30, 20, and 10 per cent stakes, respectively.

The acreage in this license consists of parts of block 16/1. The well will be drilled about 6 kilometres southwest of the Ivar Aasen field. According to the NPD, this is the ninth exploration well to be drilled in the license.

The Deepsea Stavanger has recently been awarded a contract for work with Lundin following a letter of intent from January 2021.

At the time, Odfjell Drilling announced the award of letters of intent with Lundin Energy for the use of Deepsea Stavanger rig.

Under the letter of intent, the duration was initially supposed to be for one firm well plus eight optional wells.

In March, Odfjell said that the final contract for the drilling campaign was signed and was changed to three firm wells plus six optional wells.

The firm scope has a contractual value of around $33 million. Otherwise, the contract is signed on the same conditions as disclosed in January.

The contract with Lundin is set to begin in the third quarter of 2021, back-to-back with Deepsea Stavanger’s contract with Aker BP.

As for the rig, it is a GVA 7500 type semi-submersible, built in South Korea in 2010, owned and operated by Odfjell Drilling. The rig was issued an Acknowledgement of Compliance (AoC) by the PSA back in March 2017.