Semi-submersible rig heading to Namibia to drill for Shell

Northern Ocean’s Deepsea Bollsta semi-submersible drilling rig is on its way to Namibia where it is expected to arrive in late November and start its contract with the oil major Shell.

Following the completion of a contract with Lundin Energy on 1 March 2022, the company’s 6th generation semi-submersible drilling rig Deepsea Bollsta was warm stacked at Hanøytangen, Norway.

The completion of this contract also meant that the rig management and marketing services for Northern Ocean’s Deepsea Bollsta rig were transferred from Seadrill to Odfjell Drilling. The management of the company’s warm-stacked Deepsea Mira rig was also transferred to Odfjell Drilling.

But, the idle period for Deepsea Bollsta did not last long. In late August 2022, Northern Ocean secured a new contract for the rig with the oil major Shell. Odfjell Drilling, as the operations manager, immediately moved to reactivate it for the beginning of operations in 4Q and Northern Ocean carried out a private placement to raise gross proceeds of about $40 million to fund the reactivation.

The contract has an estimated firm duration of twelve months plus one six-month option and it will add $124 million of firm revenue backlog to the company, excluding the option.

Following the reactivation period, the rig sailed away from Norway about three weeks ago and arrived at Las Palmas port on 2 November. After spending about two days there getting technical supplies, the semi-sub rig set sail towards Walvis Bay, Namibia on Friday, 4 November.

According to the latest AIS data, the rig is now located off West Africa and it is expected to arrive in Namibia on 28 November to begin its contract with Shell.

Shell has already made an oil discovery on its acreage in the Orange Basin in Namibia following the drilling of Graff-1 deepwater well in Block 2913A. The well was drilled using the Valaris DS-10 drillship and announced as a discovery in February 2022. In the months following the discovery, the focus was on performing extensive laboratory analyses to gain a better understanding of the reservoir quality and potential flow rates achievable.

In addition, further exploration activity is required, including a second exploration well, to determine the size and recoverable potential of the identified hydrocarbons.