Aker BP Set To Drill Lyderhorn East Offshore Well

Norwegian oil firm Aker BP has received a drilling permit for an exploration well in the North Sea, offshore Norway.

The well 24/12-7 – named Lyderhorn East – is located in production license 1041. According to the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD), the well will be drilled using the Odfjell Drilling's Deepsea Stavanger semi-submersible drilling rig.

Aker BP is the operator of the license with a 55 percent stake. The other partners are Neptune Energy Norge AS with 30 percent and Lundin Energy Norway AS which holds the remaining 15 percent.

The well will be drilled about 15 kilometers south of the Bøyla field. Production license 1041 was awarded on 14 February 2020 (APA 2019). This is the first exploration well to be drilled in this license.

Aker BP and Odfjell Drilling in September 2020 signed a contract for the Deepsea Stavanger to drill five wells with an estimated contract value of up to $44 million, plus incentives. The contract was set to start latest by end of the third quarter of 2021, back-to-back with Deepsea Stavanger’s return from South Africa.

The offshore driller has also recently won a deal for an additional well under a contract with Equinor. This adds about $20 million to the rig’s backlog. The Deepsea Stavanger is now expected to be busy into the third quarter of 2022.

As for Aker BP, it produced 210 thousand barrels of oil equivalents per day (mboepd) in the third quarter. The net volume sold is around 224.8 mboepd.

Production costs for the oil and gas sold in the third quarter stand at approximately $210 million. Production cost per boe is estimated at $9. Exploration expenses for the quarter are expected to be approximately USD 100 million.

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