Shell keeps Maersk rig for North Sea Pensacola well

June 29, 2022
Shell UK has booked the Maersk Resilient jackup for an exploration well on the Pensacola gas prospect in the U.K. southern North Sea.

Offshore staff

LYNGBY, Denmark  Shell UK has booked the Maersk Resilient jackup for an exploration well on the Pensacola gas prospect in the U.K. southern North Sea.

The rig has been under contract to Shell’s Dutch subsidiary Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij (NAM) and is drilling a production well in the Dutch sector. Last year it worked on Shell UK’s Galleon Field.

Deltic Energy, Shell’s partner in Pensacola in license P2252, expects seabed preparations to start next month and drilling to get underway in the second half of 2022. The program should last about two months, according to Maersk Drilling.

Pensacola is a Zechstein Reef prospect northwest of the producing Breagh gas field. Deltic estimates prospective resources at 309 Bcf.

If successful, the well could prove that the Zechstein Reef play, which has been developed from Poland west to the Netherlands, extends into U.K. waters. Maersk Resilient is a Gusto-engineered MSC CJ 50 jackup rig, which was delivered in 2008.

06.29.2022