Northern Offshore, a drilling contractor based in Houston, has secured extensions for three of its high-spec jack-up rigs, allowing them to continue operating for Qatargas for an additional period of up to three years, according to a media report.
The rigs, namely Energy Enticer, Energy Edge, and Energy Embracer, will continue their work at Qatargas’ North Field, online news portal Upstream wrote in a report.
As per the report, Northern Offshore has bagged the long-term contracts in 2019 for Energy Enticer and Energy Edge from Qatar Petroleum, now known as QatarEnergy, the owner of Qatargas.
These two rigs, built by Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding (SWS) in China, belong to the Gusto MSC CJ-50 series, the Upstream report said.
The Energy Edge, which was ordered by Northern Offshore in 2014, has the capability to operate in water depths of up to 400 feet and drill to depths of 30,000 feet.
In January 2020, Northern Offshore announced that it had been awarded a contract by QP for the GustoMSC CJ46 jack-up rig Energy Embracer.
This rig was delivered by SWS in December 2018. Energy Enticer commenced drilling in October 2020 at the North Field, operated by Qatargas, marking the first of the three jack-up rigs to begin its long-term contract with the state-owned operator.
Qatar’s North Field is regarded as the largest non-associated natural gas field in the​ world, with recoverable reserves of over 900 trillion standard cubic feet (tscf), or approximately 10% of the world’s known reserves.​
The North Field lies off the north-east shore of the Qatar peninsula and covers an area of more than 6,000 square kilometres, equivalent to about half the land area of the State of Qatar.​​
