Norwegian oil and gas company Aker BP has received consent from the country’s offshore safety regulator to use a Maersk Drilling-owned rig for production drilling on the Tambar offshore field.
The Petroleum Safety Authority Norway (PSA) said on Wednesday it has given Aker BP consent to use the Maersk Integrator for production drilling on the Tambar field .
Maersk Drilling secured an additional one-well contract from Aker BP for Maersk Integrator to work on the Tambar field back in July 2020 with work expected to start in February 2021.
Maersk Integrator is an ultra-harsh environment CJ70 XLE jack-up rig, designed for year-round operations in the North Sea. It was delivered in 2015.
Before starting the Tambar work for Aker BP, the jack-up was scheduled to undergo a series of upgrades to turn it into a hybrid, low-emission rig .
The upgrades are similar to the ones previously announced for the Maersk Intrepid, combining the use of hybrid power with low levels of NOx emissions, and adding data intelligence to further reduce energy consumption and CO2 emissions.
Tambar is a field in the southern part of the Norwegian sector in the North Sea, 16 kilometres southeast of the Ula field. The water depth is 68 metres.
The field was discovered in 1983 and the plan for development and operation (PDO) was approved in 2000.
It has been developed with a remotely controlled wellhead facility without processing equipment. Production started in 2001.