IOG spuds first well in North Sea drilling campaign

Independent Oil and Gas plc (IOG) has started drilling the Elgood development well, 48/22c-H1, located in the UK North Sea.

Elgood is the first of five planned development wells in IOG’s Phase 1 project, IOG said on an update on Monday.

The rig mobilised from the Cromarty Firth on 1 April and reached the Elgood field location early on 4 April.

After preparation and jacking-up, the Elgood well spudded on 9 April 2021.

The well is expected to take approximately three months to drill and complete.

After that, the Noble Hans Deul jack-up rig will move on to Blythe in the early third quarter.

IOG awarded a rig contract for its Core Project Phase 1 to Noble Corporation back in November 2020. According to Noble Corporation’s fleet status report, the rig is under contract with IOG until early May 2022.

The Core Project comprises 410 BCF of 2P+2C reserves and resources across six discovered UK Southern North Sea gas fields.

Phase 1 comprises the development of the Southwark, Blythe, and Elgood fields through a total of five wells, which will be drilled with the Noble Hans Deul rig, and the recommissioning of the Thames Pipeline and onshore TRF.

Andrew Hockey, CEO of IOG, commented: “We are very pleased to have kicked off the Phase 1 drilling campaign, another key milestone for the company as we continue to progress towards commercialisation of our Core Project.

“This drilling campaign has been planned meticulously by the IOG drilling, subsurface, subsea and HSE teams since early last year, in collaboration with our main drilling contractors Noble Corporation, Petrofac and Schlumberger and our partner CalEnergy.

“We have a very clear collective focus on ensuring safe and efficient performance leading successfully to first gas in Q3 2021 at the Blythe Hub before continuing into 2022 at Southwark”.

The Final Investment Decision (FID) on Phase 1 was declared in October 2019, the Field Development Plan (FDP) was approved by the UK government in April 2020, and the first gas is planned for 3Q 2021.