Equinor awards contract to Odfjell Drilling

Equinor announced that it has issued Odfjell Drilling a contract to drill 15 wells for the Breidablikk group, for which the partnership recently submitted the plan for development and operation (PDO).

Drilling is scheduled to start in the spring of 2022, and the campaign is estimated to last until the autumn of 2024.

The agreement includes options for drilling additional nine wells before continuous optionality apply. The estimated value of the fixed part of the agreement is US$290 million. Additional costs include a number of integrated services, maintenance, modifications, mobilisation and demobilisation.

“We have had excellent cooperation with Odfjell over time, and they have consistently delivered wells safely and efficiently to us by use of the Deepsea Atlantic drilling rig. This time a sister rig with the same technical design will be used and we have high expectations to Deepsea Aberdeen as well. Through this agreement we are enhancing our cooperation with Odfjell based on our good experience with the company, and it will be exciting to develop this further,” said Erik G. Kirkemo, senior vice president of drilling & well operations in Equinor.

“In this contract we have further developed the performance-based compensation system, enabling the supplier to increase their profit per well delivery by completing safe and efficient operations. We regard this as an important step towards reaching our ambition of shifting focus from rate per day to cost per well, a move we believe is important to ensure sustainable costs in the future,” added Equinor’s chief procurement officer Peggy Krantz-Underland.

At the end of September, Equinor and its partners submitted the PDO for Breidablikk.

The licence partners in Breidablikk are Equinor (operator), Petoro AS, Vår Energi AS and ConocoPhillips Skandinavia AS.