Shelf Drilling jack-up duo’s new long-term gigs prompting rig moves to West Africa

September 6, 2024, by Melisa Čavčić

UAE-headquartered offshore drilling contractor Shelf Drilling has won a new set of drilling assignments for two jack-up rigs in its fleet. These contract awards will lead one of the rigs to take its leave from the Middle East and go to West Africa, where the new jobs await the arrival of both units.

Shelf Drilling Mentor jack-up rig; Source: Shelf Drilling

The first contract in West Africa has been secured for the 2010-built Shelf Drilling Mentor 350-foot LeTourneau Super 116-E jack-up rig, which is tasked with a ten-well campaign, valued at $60 million. Based on an estimated duration, the rig will work on this job for 450 days in direct continuation of its current campaign in Nigeria.

The second deal takes the form of a letter of award for the Shelf Drilling Achiever jack-up rig. This is anticipated to enable the rig to undertake a multi-year campaign scheduled to begin in October 2024. The company expects to execute a contract for this program in the very near term.

While the 2019-built Shelf Drilling Achiever 350-foot GustoMSC CJ46-X100-D rig is currently being mobilized to West Africa on a dry transport carrier and is slated to arrive before the end of September 2024, Shelf Drilling is also mobilizing the 1982-built Main Pass IV 300-foot Friede & Goldman L-780-MOD II jack-up rig using the same dry transport carrier. This rig is due to begin operations before the end of 2024.

The contracts these rigs had with Saudi Aramco were terminated, thus, both rigs are being mobilized to West Africa. The rig owner previously disclosed that their arrival was expected in September 2024 for contract opportunities starting in Q4 2024.

Greg O’Brien, Chief Executive Officer of Shelf Drilling, commented: “We are very pleased with these two awards, which build on our leading position in West Africa and demonstrate the strength of this market. These awards further support our decision to mobilize the two rigs from the Middle East, and we are confident that operations for the Main Pass IV will also commence shortly after the rig’s arrival.”

The UAE-headquartered drilling player’s total contract backlog rose to $2.1 billion at the end of the second quarter of 2024.