Schlumberger and Halliburton win big as ADNOC dishes out $763.7 million in new deals

UAE’s oil and gas giant ADNOC is making an investment of $763.7 million (AED2.8 billion) in integrated rigless services across six of its artificial islands in the Upper Zakum and Satah Al Razboot (SARB) fields to support its production capacity expansion to 5 million barrels per day (mmbpd) by 2030. 

The energy giant said on Wednesday that the investment is in the form of three contracts awarded by ADNOC Offshore to Schlumberger, ADNOC Drilling, and Halliburton after a competitive tender process.

Schlumberger’s share of the award is valued at $381.18 million; ADNOC Drilling’s share is valued at $228.71 million, and Halliburton’s share is valued at $153.87 million.

According to ADNOC, over 80 per cent of the total award value will flow back into the United Arab Emirate’s economy under the company’s In-Country Value (ICV) program over the 5-year duration of the contracts.

Yaser Saeed Almazrouei, ADNOC Upstream Executive Director, said: “These important awards for integrated rigless services will drive efficiencies of drilling and related services, and optimize costs in our Offshore operations as we ramp up our drilling activities to increase our production capacity and enable gas self-sufficiency for the UAE.

“The contractors bring best-in-class expertise and technologies with a proven track record in the industry and ADNOC Drilling’s scope reflects its expanded service profile following its successful transformation into a fully integrated drilling services (IDS) company, enabling it to offer its clients start-to-finish well drilling and construction services”.

The scope of the contracts includes coiled tubing services with thru-tubing downhole tools, stimulation services, including equipment and chemicals/fluid systems, surface well testing services, wireline, and production logging services and tools, saturation monitoring, and well integrity.

Previously, ADNOC Offshore’s rigless services were provided through several discrete service-specific contracts. Unifying the scope through integrated service contracts provides the company with operational flexibility while enabling cost efficiencies and single point responsibility by the contractors.

Ahmad Saqer Al-Suwaidi, CEO of ADNOC Offshore, said: “These contracts are an important contributor to ADNOC Offshore’s plans to build our production capacity to over 2 million barrels a day in the coming years to support the ADNOC Group’s smart growth strategy”.

The six artificial islands covered by the awards are Asseifiya, Ettouk, Al Ghallan, and Umm Al Anbar in the Upper Zakum field and Al Qatia and Bu Sikeen in the SARB field. The company emphasised that artificial islands provide significant cost and environmental benefits, particularly in shallow water, by enabling the use of lower-cost land drilling rigs instead of higher-cost offshore jack-up drilling rigs.

ADNOC Drilling’s transformation into a fully integrated drilling services provider followed the award to Baker Hughes of a 5 per cent share in the company, which is now capable of delivering start-to-finish drilling and well-construction services onshore and offshore.

Earlier this week, ADNOC joined the Hydrogen Council, a group of over 100 companies from over 20 countries working to ensure that hydrogen plays a key role in accelerating the energy transition and the journey towards a low-carbon future.