Norwegian Ocean Industry Authority (Havtil) has issued the Acknowledgement of Compliance (AoC) for the Shelf Drilling Barsk jack-up rig, which can now proceed to start operations with Equinor on the Sleipner Vest field, off Norway.
Earlier in 2024, Norway’s offshore industry safety watchdog Havtil denied AoC for the Barsk jack-up rig, which resulted in the delay of its operations with Equinor, originally scheduled for May 2024 as part of the contract Shelf Drilling secured with the oil major in 2023.
Havtil’s AoC expresses the regulator’s confidence that petroleum operations can be pursued by a mobile facility in compliance with the regulations.
With the AoC approval in place, operations are now expected to begin in the coming weeks.
Shelf Drilling’s contract with Equinor for the Barsk jack-up covers an initial scope of two wells and an estimated duration of 270 days, with options for two wells.
In April 2024, Shelf Drilling signed a contract extension with Equinor for the rig for operations at the Gudrun field located offshore Norway.
The firm term of the extension is two wells with an estimated duration of 254 days in total.
The contract extension also includes options for three wells at Gudrun, located on the Norwegian Continental Shelf.
The Sleipner Vest field with block 15/6 og 15/9 was discovered in 1974. The production of gas and condensate started in August 1996.
Sleipner Vest is developed with two platforms: the production/wellhead platform Sleipner B and the processing and gas treatment platform Sleipner T.
As part of the Sleipner Vest development, the satellite field Alfa Nord (also gas/condensate) was tied back to Sleipner T platform.
The gas from Sleipner Vest is exported into the Gassled transport system, while the unstable condensate is transported in pipeline to Kårstø in Rogaland for further processing.
