Shelf Drilling, a Dubai-based drilling contractor, has secured two new contracts for its jack-up rigs offshore West Africa.
The first contract is for the 2010-built Shelf Drilling Mentor 350-foot LeTourneau Super 116-E jack-up rig, which will drill 10 wells over an estimated 450-day period in the Niger Delta, Nigeria, with a contract value of $60 million.
The second is a letter of award for the Shelf Drilling Achiever jack-up rig, which is set to commence a multi-year campaign in October 2024. The company expects to execute a contract for this program in the very near term.
The Shelf Drilling Achiever rig is currently being mobilized to West Africa on a dry transport carrier and is expected to arrive before the end of September 2024.
Concurrently, Shelf Drilling is mobilizing the Main Pass IV rig using the same dry transport carrier, which is also expected to begin operations before the end of 2024.
The contracts these rigs had with Saudi Aramco were terminated, thus, both rigs are being mobilized to West Africa. The rig owner previously disclosed that their arrival was expected in September 2024 for contract opportunities starting in Q4 2024.
These contracts demonstrate Shelf Drilling’s leading position in West Africa and the strength of the market. The company’s CEO, Greg O’Brien, expressed pleasure with the awards, stating that they support the decision to mobilize the two rigs from the Middle East.
According to the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, Shelf Drilling’s oil rig count has increased from 11 to 30 in 2011.
The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and China Engineering and Machinery Corporation (CMEC) have also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the co-funding of the Gwagwalada Independent Power Plant (GIPP) Phase-1 Project.
It is anticipated that the project will create job opportunities, improve power generation, lessen gas flaring, and promote industrial growth.
