Rig en route to OKEA’s North Sea tie-back project location ahead of drilling ops

Norway’s oil and gas company OKEA is getting ready to welcome a semisubmersible drilling rig managed by Odfjell Drilling to the location of its North Sea tie-back project, where drilling activities are set to kick off next week.

According to a social media post by OKEA, Deepsea Yantai is on its way from Haltenbanken to the Bestla field in the North Sea, in the vicinity of the OKEA-operated Brage platform. 

The rig has been on a lucky streak lately, finding oil and gas in license PL1182 S for DNO and gas and light condensate at the Vidsyn prospect for Vår Energi.

Drilling operations at Bestla are expected to start early next week, in preparation for the delivery of subsea production wells. The assignment is expected to take around four months. 

As disclosed, approximately 16 kilometers will be drilled during this period, exploring the western part of the Bestla structure. OKEA’s first multilateral well – a well with two branches – will be installed, and two subsea production wells will be delivered.

The Norwegian player sees this as a major milestone for the Bestla-to-Brage subsea tie-back project, bringing it one major step closer to first oil. A couple of weeks ago, Bestla saw the delivery and installation of subsea templates, marking the start of the project’s execution phase.

Additionally, the company will drill the Talisker A-15 appraisal well from the Brage platform within a 12-kilometer radius. OKEA believes this could ultimately become the longest well on the Norwegian continental shelf (NCS).

Previously known as Brasse, the Bestla project got its current name last November. Representing a discovery of oil with associated gas at license PL740 made in 2017, the asset is situated in the Troll-Oseberg area of the North Sea, just south of Brage.

The development of the field, estimated to contain 24 million barrels of oil equivalent gross in recoverable reserves, entails a two-well subsea tie-back to the Brage platform, which will serve as the host facility for production, processing, and export.

The partners in PL740 are OKEA as the operator and 39.27% interest holder, DNO Norge AS (39.27%), Lime Petroleum AS (17%), and M Vest Energy AS (4.4%).