Odfjell kicks off drilling campaign in Ghana

Odfjell Drilling, a 51-year-old offshore drilling player, has entrusted Norway’s Coast Center Base (CCB) with the special periodic survey (SPS) job for one of the harsh environment semi-submersible rigs it manages on behalf of China’s CIMC. Another rig, which the drilling contractor is managing on behalf of Northern Ocean (NOL), has begun its drilling assignment off the coast of Ghana, Africa.

After Odfjell Drilling picked CCB to carry out a five-year SPS of the Deepsea Yantai rig, the semi-submersible, which was previously known as the Beacon Atlantic, came to the Norwegian yard at the end of October to complete the SPS in approximately two weeks.

“This is the second Odfjell rig to be classified at CCB this year, and we are both proud and satisfied with the award, and the trust shown in us. Through many years of collaboration, we have developed a very good relationship with Odfjell, and we look forward to working together on another class project here at Ågotnes. Welcome Deepsea Yantai,” highlighted Coast Center Base.

The 2019-built rig, owned by China’s CIMC and managed by Odfjell Drilling, recently drilled the Cerisa exploration well and three additional side-track appraisal wells for Vår Energi. These drilling activities led to a new commercial oil and gas discovery in the North Sea, which is estimated to contain gross recoverable resources of between 18-39 million barrels of oil equivalent (mmboe).

On the other hand, the Deepsea Bollsta rig, one of Northern Ocean’s two sixth-generation semi-submersibles managed by Odfjell Drilling and expected to be equipped with Kinetic Pressure Control’s kinetic blowout stopper (K-BOS), has started its appraisal job in Africa after securing a new short-term gig off the coast of Ghana. The rig made its way to Springfield E&P‘s Afina discovery at the WCTP-2 offshore block in Ghana a few days ago and began appraisal activities at the Afina-1x well.

The well test is estimated to take 30-35 days and follows only months after a court ruling in the arbitration case between Italy’s Eni and Springfield regarding the latter’s claim that the discovery is linked to the oil major’s Sankofa field, put the Ghanian player on the path of undertaking the appraisal of the Afina discovery. The field in question is said to hold around 640 million barrels and the possibility of utilizing the discovery and Eni’s field is anticipated to boost Ghana’s oil production.

The Deepsea Bollsta rig is set to undertake a five-year class survey after the Ghana job, followed by another assignment offshore Namibia. The 2020-built Deepsea Bollsta sixth-generation semi-submersible rig is of Moss CS60E design and can accommodate 140 people. The unit can carry out operations in both benign and harsh environments at water depths of up to 3,000 meters.

Northern Ocean’s other semi-sub, the Deepsea Mira rig, has been working with TotalEnergies under a multi-country drilling contract since December 2022. The French giant exercised the first option under the contract in late 2023, followed by an extension slated to start in October 2024 for one well, with an additional well option.

While providing its take on the offshore drilling market’s current trends, Odfjell Drilling confirmed recently that it was not expecting any newbuild rigs, as a new floater could take around four years to get built from project sanction and cost $800 million to $1 billion but would likely be similar in design to its
owned fleet.

In addition, the firm estimated that upfront payments of around 50% would be required by yards, thus, a day rate needed to justify a newbuild would need to exceed $720,000 per day with a five-year contract. Regarding the SPS activity of its owned fleet of rigs, Odfjell Drilling confirmed that two of these rigs, Deepsea Nordkapp and Deepsea Atlantic, already completed their special period surveys, thus, two more are left to do so next year.

While the Deepsea Aberdeen semi-sub is now expected to be done with the SPS in H1 2025, the Deepsea Stavanger rig is anticipated to also complete it in Q2 2025. According to the rig owner, the average capex allocation for the remaining two SPS programs remains around $50 million per unit with two to four weeks of off-hire time.