Odfjell Drilling-managed rig to spud wildcat pair offshore Norway

OMV Norge, a Norwegian subsidiary of Austria-headquartered oil and gas player OMV, has received a drilling permit from the country’s authorities for a wildcat well duo in the Norwegian Sea, enabling it to undertake drilling activities this month with a semi-submersible rig managed by Odfjell Drilling, an offshore drilling contractor.

The Norwegian Offshore Directorate (NOD) has granted OMV Norge a drilling permit for the wellbores 6606/4-1 S and 6606/4-1 A in production license 1194, which was awarded on February 17, 2023, and is valid until the same date in 2029.

OMV Norge is the operator of the license with an ownership interest of 40%, while its partners, Inpex Idemitsu Norway and Our Energy, each hold a 30% interest, respectively. Both wells are scheduled to be drilled in May 2025 with the Deepsea Bollsta rig, owned by Northern Ocean (NOL).

The rig, which secured this short-term assignment on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) last year, is anticipated to finish the work before its deal with Equinor. The 2020-built Deepsea Bollsta sixth-generation semi-submersible rig is of Moss CS60E design and can accommodate 140 people.

This semi-sub can carry out operations in both benign and harsh environments at water depths of up to 3,000 meters. OMV is actively searching for more hydrocarbons. To this end, the firm completed the drilling of a wildcat well in the Norwegian Sea a few months ago.

This led to a gas discovery with estimated recoverable volumes between 30 and 140 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe). The firm had less luck in the North Sea, as the well it drilled in March 2025 was dry.