New drillship contracts and rig move pacts emerge in the eastern Mediterranean

Stena Drilling, Transocean ink contracts for drillships in eastern Mediterranean Sea

Energean, on behalf of partners ExxonMobil and Helleiq Energy, will use the Stena DrillMAX to drill the first exploratory well on deepwater Block 2 offshore western Greece on the Asopos prospect. Operations should start in early 2027.

The location, in the northwestern Ionian Sea, will require managed pressure drilling.

Stena Drilling has previously worked for Energean on various campaigns offshore Israel and Morocco.

Meanwhile, Transocean’s drillship Deepwater Asgard has a five-well contract, valued at about $158 million, which was awarded by an unnamed operator.

The 390-day campaign should get underway in the fourth quarter. It follows other recently announced asignments for the Transocean Barents offshore Norway, and the Deepwater Orion, Deepwater Aquila and Deepwater Corcovado in Brazil.

ABL, PMS strengthen rig move cooperation in Egypt

ABL and Egyptian offshore construction and services company Petroleum Marine Services (PMS) entered into a further potential collaboration earlier this month.

Under their Memorandum of Understanding, ABL’s local operations in Egypt would be available on a call-off basis to provide rig moving and operations technical support, and a broad range of marine assurance and risk services, including rig inspections, DP assurance and critical systems consulting.

Last December the two companies agreed to cooperate on a unified rig moving service in the Red Sea and Gulf of Suez, with support from Egyptian General Petroleum Corp. (EGPC).

ABL typically performs services for about 1,300 rig moves annually. These include marine warranty survey, vessel surveys and inspections, tow master and OCR support, engineering technical studies such as leg penetration assessments, site-specific assessments, geo-consulting related to jackups and other rig types.

PMS, as independent entity subsidiary of EPC, provides assistance for offshore oil and gas construction projects in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East.