BP has confirmed today it has kicked off drilling on the Loyal field in the North Sea, using the new-build, semi-submersible rig Deepsea Aberdeen. This marks the start of a seven year drilling campaign west of Shetland, UK.

Deepsea Aberdeen is contracted to drill wells across the Schiehallion and Loyal fields, as part of the Quad204 development. The sixth-generation, dual derrick rig is the newest addition in Odfjell Drilling’s fleet of mobile offshore drilling units. It has been designed to operate in harsh environments, carrying out ultra-deepwater drilling in depths up to 3,000m.

The Deepsea Aberdeen will initially drill two producer wells and one injector well on Loyal, before moving onto Schiehallion to continue drilling activities. Five wells are planned to be drilled prior to first oil from the new Glen Lyon floating, production, storage and offload (FPSO) vessel at the end of 2016.

Trevor Garlick, Regional President for BP’s North Sea business said: “This marks an exciting and important milestone for both the Quad 204 project and our wider North Sea business. The drilling campaign not only demonstrates our commitment to the Region in what is a challenging time, but will also help maximise production from Schiehallion and Loyal, contributing to the long term competitiveness of BP’s North Sea business.”

The Deepsea Aberdeen will be operated from Odfjell Drilling’s office in Aberdeen. Odfjell Drilling CEO, Simen Lieungh said: “The start of drilling operations on Deepsea Aberdeen marks another step in the development of Odfjell Drilling’s activities in the UK and harsh environment offshore regions. The rig design is based on our more than 40 years’ experience of drilling in the North Sea. Our offshore crew and our onshore organisation in Scotland are looking forward to working collaboratively with BP over the next seven years on the Quad 204 development.”

BP (operator) and Shell each have a 50 per cent ownership interest in the Loyal field. The Schiehallion field ownership interest is split between BP (operator) with 33.35 percent; OMV (11.76 per cent); Shell (54.89 per cent).

Source: www.offshoreenergytoday.com

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