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Equinor's bid will have an eight-year contract, the first long-term one since the crisis in the oil and gas sector began
At the beginning of the year, Equinor found oil west of Carcará and notified the ANP, since then, the Norwegian oil company (formerly Statoil) has been making waves in the Brazilian offshore market.
Last Friday, Equinor launched a tender to contract a drilling rig for the development of the Carcará field, in the Santos basin.
It is the first action by a foreign company bidding to hire a rig in a long-term contract. The deal provides for four years, extendable for another four and the rig should be available to start drilling between May and June 2021.
According to the invitation to bid, the equipment must be capable of operating at a water depth of 3 m and must operate for eight uninterrupted years, as it will drill 18 to 20 wells, the tendency is for the oil company to renew the contract at least two more times.
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The bad news is that no Brazilian company was invited to participate in the bid. The process being conducted by Equinor of Norway which specified that the rig be equipped with a pressure management system (MPD) and dual activity.
As no national company has equipment available to meet the contractual requirements, the bidding should go to the favorites EnscoRowan, Transocean and the Norwegian companies Seadrill and Odfjell. Companies have 5 weeks to submit proposals.
FPSO and Subsea
It is said in the market that Equinor's initiative to bid now for a rig that will only drill in 2021 is a strong sign that the oil company wants to get ahead of the high demand for this type of equipment in the coming years.
The first oil from the carcará field is scheduled for between 2023 and 2024 and three and a half years later, the start of the complementary phase of the asset that was acquired in the 2nd production sharing round, in 2016, in partnership with ExxonMobil ( 40%) and Galp (20%).
The West Saturn rig, from Seadrill ends this month the drilling campaign in Carcará and in the meantime Equinor is in the market discussing the FEEDs (pre-detail engineering) for the FPSO, which could be the largest in the pre-salt (220 thousand barrels/day) and the SURF (risers, umbilicals and subsea flowlines) of the project.
