Fresh North Sea well on the horizon for Aker BP

The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) has issued a drilling permit to Aker BP for a wildcat well located in the North Sea off Norway.

The well 24/12-7 will be drilled from the Odfjell Drilling-owned Deepsea Stavanger semi-submersible drilling rig, the NPD said on Monday.

The drilling programme for well 24/12-7 relates to the drilling of a wildcat well in production licence 1041. Aker BP is the operator of the licence with an ownership interest of 55 per cent and other licensees are Neptune Energy Norge (30 per cent) and Lundin Energy Norway (15 per cent).

The acreage in this licence consists of part of block 24/12 and the well will be drilled about 15 kilometres south of the Bøyla field.

Production licence 1041 was awarded on 14 February 2020 (APA 2019) and this is the first exploration well to be drilled in this licence.

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 3Q 2021, back-to-back with Deepsea Stavanger’s return from South Africa.

Furthermore, Odfjell Drilling has recently won an additional well under a contract with Equinor, adding about $20 million to the rig’s backlog. The additional well will follow the current firm period of three wells with Equinor, which starts during the first quarter of 2022. The rig is now expected to be occupied into the third quarter of 2022.