Shell taps Noble’s 2013-built rig for Asian offshore drilling assignment

Brunei Shell Petroleum, a subsidiary of the UK-headquartered energy giant Shell, has booked a drillship owned by Noble Corporation, a U.S.-based offshore drilling player, for a drilling campaign off the coast of Brunei in Southeast Asia, on the northern coast of the island of Borneo.

Thanks to this deal, the 2013-built Noble Viking has secured a one-firm well plus one option well contract, which is expected to begin around Q4 2025 in direct continuation from a previous contract.

This deal will take approximately 30 days and comes with an estimated value of $14 million, excluding mobilization and demobilization fees. Last year, the rig won a contract with Prime Energy to drill three wells, with an additional one-well option, at the Malampaya-Camago field off the coast of the Philippines.

This drilling job, which is estimated to begin in 2Q 2025, will start in direct continuation of the drillship’s current contract in Malaysia with Sarawak Shell Berhad and Sabah Shell Petroleum Co (SSB/SSPC), subsidiaries of the UK-headquartered Shell.

The deal for Noble’s drillship comes shortly after Shell hired Serikandi Hilong for the engineering, preparation, removal, and disposal (EPRD) of redundant offshore structures in Bruneian waters. The Noble Viking drillship can accommodate 230 people.

With a maximum drilling depth of 40,000 feet (circa 12 kilometers), the rig can work in water depths of 12,000 feet (3.66 kilometers). Noble has been a busy bee, securing new drilling jobs across the globe for its rig fleet.

One of these assignments came with the challenge of navigating a minefield; thus, the rig owner recently provided an overview of the challenges it needed to overcome to move its jack-up for its first-ever job in Poland.