WATCH: Stena Drilling drillship finds its way to Las Palmas shipyard’s dock ahead of Morocco job

Aberdeen-based offshore drilling contractor Stena Drilling has sent one of its drillships to undertake a special periodic survey (SPS) at Astilleros Canarios (Astican) in the port of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain. Once the SPS has been done, the rig will sail from the Canary Islands to Morocco to embark on its drilling assignment with London-based Energean.

After wrapping up its drilling campaign with Shell in Egypt, Stena Drilling’s Stena Forth drillship went to the Astican shipyard in Las Palmas to get its SPS out of the way before heading to the Anchois gas field. According to the rig owner, this drillship has operated in 14 countries.

The rig’s next destination is Morocco, where it will carry out a one-well firm program for Energean, which recently entered the country, thanks to partnership agreements to take over the operator role at two offshore licenses from Chariot, including Lixus, where the Anchois gas development project is located, and Rissana.

“We are pleased to welcome the Stena Forth, which has travelled from Egypt to undertake the SPS at our Las Palmas shipyard before heading to her next contract,” highlighted Astican.

The 2009-built sixth-generation harsh environment dual-activity dynamically positioned (DP3) drillship is scheduled to start drilling the Anchois East appraisal well in the third quarter of 2024 and undertake a drill stem test on the main gas-containing sands, targeting an additional 11 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gross unrisked prospective resource.

Upon completion, these operations are anticipated to assist in moving the project closer to a final investment decision (FID). Energean is the operator and holds 45% and 37.5% of the respective interests in the Lixus and Rissana licenses offshore Morocco. The company’s partner, Chariot, has 30% and 37.5% of the respective interests in these licenses while ONHYM maintains a 25% stake in each.

The Stena Forth rig’s deal with Energean brings the flexibility to drill an additional option well in Morocco. Since the Stena DrillMAX and Stena IceMAX drillships have completed drilling campaigns for the London-based player, Stena Forth is the third rig in Stena Drilling’s fleet that the firm has hired so far.

Aside from submitting a formal application for a CO2 storage license in Greece, the UK player took steps to sell its assets in Egypt, Italy, and Croatia to pursue gas-weighted portfolio growth in the Mediterranean and the wider Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region.