Go-ahead for Aker BP’s North Sea drilling ops with Odfjell rig

Norwegian oil and gas player Aker BP has secured the all-clear from the country’s authorities to use one of Odfjell Drilling’s semi-submersible rigs for drilling operations in the North Sea off the coast of Norway.

The Norwegian Ocean Industry Authority (Havtil) has given Aker BP consent to use the Deepsea Nordkapp semi-submersible rig for drilling and completion of wells on the Symra and Solveig fields in the Utsirahøyden area of the North Sea. The Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy (MPE) green-lighted the development plans for Symra and Solveig Phase 2 in 2023.

While the Symra field will be a tie-back to the Ivar Aasen platform, with production start-up planned for the first quarter of 2027, the development of Solveig Phase 2 will be connected via existing infrastructure at Solveig to the Edvard Grieg platform from the first quarter of 2026.

Aker BP is the operator for Solveig, with OMV Norge and Harbour Energy as license partners. On the other hand, the Norwegian player’s partners for Symra are Equinor and Sval Energi. The two developments comprise 93 million barrels of oil equivalent in estimated recoverable resources.

Based on the operator’s previously disclosed timeline, the drilling operations are set to begin in the third quarter of 2025. The 2019-built Deepsea Nordkapp, formerly Stena Midmax, is a sixth-generation dynamically positioned harsh environment and winterized semi-submersible of a Moss-enhanced CS 60E design, which the offshore drilling contractor bought from Samsung Heavy in April 2018.

Odfjell Drilling was among the three offshore drilling contractors that won drilling and wells alliance deals with Aker BP in January 2023 to undertake drilling activities on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS). The Deepsea Nordkapp rig’s assignment, previously slated to be completed at the end of 2024, was prolonged to run for two more years.