Offshore rig owner Noble Corporation has won two new deals for its Noble Venturer drillship offshore Africa.
Following the early completion of the Tullow Oil campaign in Ghana, expected to end in late May 2024, the driller will relocate the drillship to Equatorial Guinea to drill three wells – two infill wells and one exploration well – for Trident Energy starting in June 2024 for an estimated 150 days. Trident planned to drill three infill wells but the third was deferred as part of a potential future drilling campaign.
The two infill wells will be drilled in Block G while the exploration well will be drilled in the Kosmos Energy-operated Akeng Deep development in Block S which is targeting an estimated gross mean resource of around 180 million barrels of oil. Trident is one of the partners in the block.
The 2014-built drillship was supposed to work for Tullow from April 2024 until March 2025 under a $298,000 dayrates, with additional services excluded. The dayrate of the Trident deal was not revealed but Noble said that it had been revised slightly upwards to replace the legacy Tullow dayrate.
The Noble Venturer will be replacing the Island Innovator rig, owned by Norwegian rig owner Island Drilling. Trident terminated the deal for the rig over safety issues. At the time, the joint venture partners claimed that the rig was “not operationally in a condition to safely drill the wells”. The Island rig was supposed to drill the same wells now awarded to the Noble drillship.
Upon completion of the work off Equatorial Guinea, the rig will move into Namibian waters and drill an exploratory campaign of at least two wells for Rhino Resources, commencing in November 2024 at a dayrate of $410,000, excluding mobilization. The dayrate will apply for firm term and option scope. The deal could potentially last between 100 and 250 days.
This work was previously slated for and conditionally awarded to the Noble Developer before the early completion of the Noble Venturer Tullow campaign.
