Norwegian offshore safety body, the Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA), has given consent to Aker BP to drill the 24/9-12 S North Sea exploration well using the Transocean Arctic rig.
Aker BP is the operator for production license 340 in the North Sea. The company holds 65 percent interest while its partners in the license are Point Resources and Lundin Norway with 20 and 15 percent interests, respectively.
The license also holds the Bøyla oil field which is some 28 kilometers south of the Alvheim field. The field is developed with a subsea installation including two horizontal production wells and one water injection well. The field is tied-back to the Alvheim floating, production, storage and offloading vessel (FPSO). Production at the field started in 2015 .
The PSA said on Monday that it gave Aker BP the consent to drill the exploration well 24/9-12 S and that the drilling was scheduled to begin during November 2017.
The well will be drilled by the Transocean Arctic semi-submersible mobile drilling rig of the Marosso 56 type. The rig was built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Japan in 1987 and upgraded in 2004.
The rig is operated by Transocean and was issued an Acknowledgement of Compliance (AoC) by the PSA in July 2004.