Shell Contracts Maersk’s Ultra-Deepwater Drillship
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Shell Contracts Maersk’s Ultra-Deepwater Drillship

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Conal Quinn By Conal Quinn | Journalist & Industry Analyst - Tue, 09/13/2022 - 16:06

Shell has extended a drillship contract with Danish shipping company Maersk Drilling for use in upcoming projects in Mexico. The offshore drilling contractor secured the contract extension with the Anglo-Dutch oil major for the Maersk Voyager, a seventh-generation drillship currently deployed at another Shell deepwater drilling campaign in Suriname. 

The rig owner reported this week that Shell had exercised an option to extend the bunkering of the Maersk Voyager, which is now set to renew for at least another six months from April 2023 onward. The Maersk Voyager, built in 2014, is a high-specification ultra-deepwater drillship. It has been under contract with Shell for use in both Sao Tome and Principe and Suriname since April 2022. Upon completion of its current assignment, the Maersk Voyager will be sent to Mexican waters in the Gulf of Mexico.

The contract renewal, estimated to be worth an initial US$77 million without factoring in the cost of integrated services and potential performance bonuses, can be modified at a later date for an additional 18 months of drilling work. Shell has also requested for RigFlow to be implemented in the deepwater drilling campaign in Mexico. RigFlow, a solution delivered by Maersk subsidiary Horizon56, allows for robust operational performance by standardizing and digitizing the core workflows involved in well construction, enabling real-time information exchange between an operator’s onshore planning units, offshore drilling teams and the service companies subcontracted to support operations.

This news comes after CNH gave Shell the go-ahead in late August to drill an exploratory well in ultra-deep waters off the coasts of Veracruz and Tabasco. The drilling of Aluk-1EXP will take place within contractual area CNH-R02-L04-AP-CS-G04/2018 and is included as part of the incremental alternative scenario of the modification to the original exploration plan, already approved by CNH on February 15, 2022, under resolution CNH.02.002/2022.

Even as other supermajors pull out, Shell has demonstrated its commitment to deepwater exploration in the Gulf of Mexico. In February 2022, CNH approved US$270 million investment plans by the world’s 4th largest IOC in the CS-G04 deepwater contract off the coast of Tabasco and Campeche, while Shell Mexico’s Director of Corporate Affairs, Lucia Bustamante, confirmed in May 2022 in an interview with El Sol de México that the company has a long-term vision for investment in offshore exploration and development in the country, lasting for at least the next 50 years. In coming years, operators such as Shell boasting an established presence in the American Gulf of Mexico should be best placed to benefit from infrastructure transference and transboundary reservoirs such as those found in the Perdido Fold Basin to lead deepwater development in Mexico.

Photo by:   https://www.maerskdrilling.com/

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