Upstream project news

GMS will provide support for offshore activities on behalf of two Middle Eastern national oil 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.

While net pay was lower than pre-drill forecasts, the company has said that the 27 degree API oil supports the significant potential of the Cretaceous play on both the Kanuku and adjacent Orinduik licences.

Under the terms of the agreement, Apache and Total will each hold a 50% working interest in Block 58, which comprises approximately 1.4 million acres in water depths ranging from less than 100 m to more than 2100 m.

The Leviathan field was discovered in 2010, and the initial development phase was sanctioned in 2017.

The new contract award, under a 10-year Framework Agreement signed in 2017 with PDO, is an Engineering, Procurement and Construction Management (EPCM) services contract for the Mabrouk North East Development Project in Oman.

Equinor and Rosneft have taken an investment decision on the first stage of the North Komsomolskoye full field development.

The country's Ministry of Mines and Hydrocarbons is expecting direct investment of a minimum of US$1.4 billion; a firm US$1.2 billion and a contingent forecast of US$273 million predicted for 2020, associated with the drilling of two wells and the continuous development of six existing wells.

The study will cover an area of approximately 80 000 km2 of the offshore Niger Delta and will incorporate around 150 cores from the seabed.