After deferral of well intervention work, Maersk rig days away from drilling at another field off Brazil

Australia’s oil and gas company Karoon Energy has decided to postpone intervention activities on the fourth well at a field, located offshore Brazil. As a result, a Maersk Drilling-owned semi-submersible rig, which was used during the three-well intervention campaign, will now carry out drilling operations on another Brazilian field for Karoon.

Back in April 2021, Karoon hired a rig to perform well intervention on four wells on the Baúna field. After the Maersk Developer rig is done with this campaign, it is expected to drill two development wells on the Patola field and, subject to the receipt of required regulatory licences, one or potentially two control wells on the Neon oil discovery. The Australian player added the Patola work to the rig’s backlog in June 2021 and the Neon option was added in May 2022. Later that same month, Karoon started its well intervention campaign on the Baúna field with the Maersk Developer rig.

In an update on Monday, Karoon informed that the third well intervention in the Baúna campaign, comprising the installation of a new electric submersible pump in well SPS-92, was completed. The well is now back online. According to the firm, the commissioning of the newly installed pump is progressing well, with the pump expected to be operating at target levels within the next two weeks. The current oil production from the well is approximately 9,500 bopd, compared with 5,500 bopd prior to the intervention.

Dr Julian Fowles, CEO and Managing Director of Karoon, commented: “We are very pleased to have completed the three major interventions on Baúna with no significant safety or environmental incidents. Production has increased from approximately 12,600 bopd immediately before the intervention programme to approximately 22,000 bopd now, with potential further upside as the SPS-92 new pump commissioning is completed, taking production towards the upper end of our targeted uplift range of 5,000 – 10,000 bopd.”

Furthermore, the production from the first two well interventions continues to be optimised and together with SPS-92, this has taken total oil production from the Baúna field to approximately 22,000 bopd, towards the upper end of pre-intervention campaign expectations, says Karoon.

Due to “the already strong results” achieved from this intervention campaign, and as the fourth well in this campaign – BAN-1 – is expected to result in “a relatively small” production uplift of a few hundred bopd, Karoon has decided to defer the BAN-1 intervention, to optimise both the overall programme and rig utilisation.

Therefore, the Maersk Developer rig will move to the Patola field, where the drilling operations for the first of two new development wells are expected to start in the next few days.

“We look forward to commencing drilling on the Patola field, our first development project since taking over as operator of the Baúna concession, once the rig has been mobilised to site,” added Fowles.

The 2009-built Maersk Developer is a DSS-21 column-stabilised dynamically positioned semi-submersible rig, able to operate in water depths up to 10,000 ft.