Upstream drilling news

Maersk Drilling has been awarded a contract for the 7th generation drillship Maersk Valiant, which will be employed by Noble Energy for a one-well campaign offshore Colombia.

The contract requires the company to drill a series of onshore directional wells, with target depths in the 3000 m range.

From 1 May, foreign firms registered in China with net assets of 300 million yuan (US$43 million) will be allowed to take part in oil and gas exploration and production.

The licences to be sold to RDG GmbH contribute about 1000 boe/d to Wintershall Dea’s production, approximately 2% of the company's daily production in Germany.

Wintershall Dea Norge AS, operator of production licence 894, is in the process of concluding the drilling of wildcat well 6604/6-1 in the Norwegian Sea, according to the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate.

Drilling in block 6507/8 is scheduled to begin in mid-January 2020, and is estimated to last for 67 days.

The Vali-1 ST1 gas exploration well operated by Vintage Energy is being drilled through the Patchawarra Formation in Australia at a measured depth of 3059 m.

Glass has over 20 years’ experience as both an executive director and as an independent non-executive director of international companies.

Lekoil 310 Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of LEKOIL, has entered into a binding loan agreement with the Qatar Investment Authority, the sovereign wealth fund of Qatar, in the amount of US$184.0 million.

With the successful Serenity discovery and remaining potential at Liberator, the company has begun planning a mid-2020, multi-well appraisal programme and is simultaneously conducting a farm-down process of its licences to potentially fund the 2020 drilling campaign.