North Sea focused explorer Independent Oil and Gas has signed a rig contract with Transocean for use of the John Shaw semisubmersible drilling rig.
The rig will be used to drill an appraisal well on IOG's 100% operated Skipper oil discovery in Block 9/21a in the Northern North Sea, in license P1609.
IOG expects the rig to start drilling at Skipper in late January-early February 2016 with the objective of retrieving good quality reservoir condition oil samples in order to design the optimum field development plan for the Skipper field.
The rig will drill a vertical well to 5600ft, which is expected to take approximately 25 days.
Skipper is an offshore heavy oil field, in the Northern North Sea with independently verified gross 2C resources of 26.2 MMbbl. IOG management estimates that Skipper has 34.1 MMbbl of recoverable oil based on a recovery factor of 25%, compared to the historic CPR estimate of 19%.
The well will also target two exploration prospects directly beneath the Skipper oil discovery in the Lower Dornoch and Maureen formations, in which the CPR authors have mapped structures which could contain an additional 46 MMbbl of oil in place. If oil is present in these structures, it would be co-developed with Skipper in line with the company’s hub strategy.
IOG intends to drill the Skipper well as 100% owner, which requires completion of the sale and purchase agreement to acquire 50% of the license from Alpha Petroleum. As previously announced, the deadline for the completion of this agreement has been extended to 21 December 2015.
The company also requires the Oil and Gas Authority to approve IOG North Sea as license operator and AGR Well Management as well operator.
Mark Routh, CEO of IOG commented: Following our recent funding, the signing of this semisubmersible rig contract with Transocean is the breakthrough we’ve been waiting for. This allows us to drill the Skipper well in the New Year which will enable us to optimize the Skipper Field Development Plan in addition to targeting two exploration prospects at low cost. We hope to provide further updates regarding approvals from the OGA in the near future."