Danish driller Maersk Drilling has been awarded a contract by Nexen Petroleum for the drilling of three wells and options for nine additional wells at UK’s largest producing oil field, the Buzzard field in the Central North Sea.
The drilling campaign is for the Buzzard Phase II Development Project and is planned to start around July 2018, the driller said on Wednesday. The estimated duration of the initial firm contract period is 225 days.
The drilling campaign will be carried out by one of Maersk Drilling’s I-class jack-ups currently operating in Norway. The I-class jack-ups are of a CJ70 design.
Lars Ostergaard , Chief Commercial Officer of Maersk Drilling, said: “We have been awarded the contract by Nexen Petroleum U.K. Limited due to our high efficiency harsh environment rig design that includes offline capabilities as well as our proven track record of delivering high performance and driving continuous improvement. By planning and executing work in close alignment with customers we are able to unlock the full performance potential of these large offline capable jack-ups.”
Maersk Drilling said that, as per contractual agreement with Nexen Petroleum, it remains to be decided which of the I-class jack-up rigs Maersk Drilling will be utilizing for the campaign at the Buzzard field. This will be decided in November 2017.