Europe Energy Review

New contracts for rigs and decommissioning in the North Sea, the UK’s plan for bolstering energy security and green energy, and a number of contracts in offshore wind, green hydrogen, and carbon capture and storage were the highlights in Europe’s energy sector over the past month.

Oil & Gas

Offshore Norway, Equinor, on behalf of several licences, has awarded contracts for the use of Transocean Encourage mainly in the Norwegian Sea, and Transocean Enabler, for the Johan Castberg field. The rigs have been on eight-year contracts with Equinor that expire on 1 December 2023 and 1 April 2024, respectively. These will be the first contract extensions since the rigs were built, as so-called Cat D rigs, specialised for Norwegian conditions. The drilling programme in the Norwegian Sea consists of nine wells to be drilled on the Tyrihans, Verdande, Andvare, and Vigdis fields in the Tampen area of the North Sea, Equinor said. On the Johan Castberg field, Transocean Enabler will have a fixed drilling programme of 19 wells and options on another eight wells.

Equinor and Transocean also signed a strategic collaboration agreement to drive improvements

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Neptune Energy said it would spend $23 million on a targeted decommissioning program in Germany this year, plugging and abandoning wells which have ceased production and removing associated infrastructure. Operations have now been completed on the plugging and abandonment (P&A) of a well in the Bentheim gas field, located in western Lower-Saxony, with a second well on the field due to be decommissioned later in 2023.

Neptune Energy also announced in early April an agreement to create new “digital twins” of two offshore platforms in the Dutch North Sea, expanding its portfolio of digitised assets to 14. UK-based 3D technology specialist Eserv will digitise the Neptune-operated D15-A and K12-C platforms, having previously created digital versions of 12 platforms in the Dutch and UK sectors of the North Sea.