Offshore drilling company Northern Ocean has announced that its Deepsea Mira semi-submersible drilling rig has started its drilling contract with TotalEnergies in Namibia, where the French oil major made a giant oil discovery last year with its Venus-1x well.
“The company is pleased to announce that its high-specification semi-submersible drilling rig, Deepsea Mira, has safely completed transit to Namibia and commenced drilling activities under its contract with a TotalEnergies subsidiary,” said the Oslo Stock Exchange-listed company.
The contract with TotalEnergies has a firm duration of 300 days, with two extension options for the French oil company. If exercised, these options would keep the rig busy throughout 2024.
“Now that the Deepsea Mira has successfully commenced operations, the company has mitigated exposure to mobilization, reactivation, and other pre-commencement risks. Additionally, the company has amended the credit facility with Sterna Finance Ltd. to provide a new tranche in the amount of $50 million with a three-month tenor. This provides the company with sufficient time to normalize working capital from both rigs,” Northern Ocean stated.
TotalEnergies has allocated almost 50% of its global exploration budget of N$5.5 billion (US$300 million) to Namibia this year, hoping to confirm a multibillion-barrel discovery on block 2913b within the Orange Basin.
The drilling rig is owned by Northern Ocean and managed by the Norwegian drilling firm Odfjell Drilling.
“Odfjell Drilling AS prepared and mobilized the rig to Namibia and will provide operations management for the duration of this contract.”
Shell Namibia Upstream B.V has entered into a N$1.7-billion contract extension with Northern Ocean for continued work in the country using the Deepsea Bollsta, also managed by Odfjell Drilling.
The subsidiary of multinational oil and gas company Shell Plc’s deal runs from December 2023 to June 2024, with an additional option for a six-month extension at a cost of N$1.6 billion.
Shell and its partners, the National Petroleum Company of Namibia and Qatar Energy, announced a significant discovery of light oil in the Jonker-1X deep-water exploration well, located approximately 270 kilometers off the Namibian coast.
Increased oil exploration in Namibia follows investments of over N$30 billion by oil companies since independence, according to the Namibia Petroleum Operators Association.
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