‘Nothing To Do With Elumelu’
Seadrill has nine rigs in contract in the waters off the coast of West Africa, the highest number in any single region. It is 18% of the company’s total fleet of 50.
South east Asia comes next with eight rigs deployed, while the North Sea, which is offshore Norway and UK, are utilizing seven Seadrill rigs. TSaudi Arabia and Kuwait, which represent the entire middle east, host six Seadrill rigs. The UK based company has 15 rigs under construction.
Most of the Seadrill rigs in the West African waters are drillships (six), and they are almost all in Angola (3) and Nigeria (4).
West Polaris is in action for ExxonMobil in the Kizombo Satellite development in Angola’s prolific Block 15. TOTAL is using the West Gemini to drill wells in that country’s Block 17. The Jack UpWest Tucana works for Chevron in the shallow water Block O.
In Nigeria, TOTAL is using the drillship West Jupiter for Egina development; the deepwater field is expected to come onstream in 2017 and expected to ramp up to 200,000BOPD. ExxonMobil, again, has two Seadrill drillships offshore Nigeria. West Capella is drilling Usan, while West Saturn is drilling Erha; the contracts are on until April 2017 and December 2016 respectively.
Subscribers to Africa Oil+Gas Report have enquired whether Seadrill’s ‘fortune’ in Nigeria has to do with the influence of the chairman of its local subsidiary, the business Tycoon Tony Elumelu. Our investigations indicate the contrary. ExxonMobil’s deployment of four Seadrill rigs in the two largest oil producers in Africa is a result of the company’s “global understanding” with Seadrill in Houston, the global headquarters of the hydrocarbon industry.
The deepwater market will be tighter in Nigeria in the coming years; now that the second phases of the big fields: Bonga, Erha and Agbami are being drilled out. The next developments: Bonga South West Aparo (BSWAP), Ugie and Etan- Zabazaba, are smaller fields, which will be drained without requirements of long tenures for rigs.
In the story above, six drillships are mentioned deployed for West Africa with Nigeria having three drillships in action, one for TOTAL Engina Field and two deployed by ExxonMobil. However the figures in the brackets tally up to 7 drillships in operation on the African coast, with Nigeria having (4) drillships in action.
Is that tallying up of figures correct, vis-a-vis the story information?