French oil company Total will drill the deepest offshore well by water depth using the Maersk Voyager drillship owned by Maersk Drilling.
The Danish offshore drilling contractor said Tuesday that, based on the conditional letter of award previously announced in the third quarter of 2019, Maersk Drilling has been awarded contracts for a three-well exploration drilling project by Total in Angola and Namibia.
Total will use the seventh generation drillship Maersk Voyager for a campaign that includes the deepest water depth ever drilled offshore, Maersk Drilling said.
The project includes two wells offshore Angola in Blocks 32 and 48, plus one well offshore Namibia. The campaign is expected to start in January 2020, with an estimated duration of 240 days. The total value of the firm contracts is approximately $46.3 million, including a mobilization fee. The contracts include two additional one-well options.
The well in Angola’s Block 48 will be drilled at a new world record water depth of 3,628 meters. Total is the owner of the current world record it set in Uruguay in 2016, using the Maersk Venturer drillship. The Raya-1 well in Uruguay was drilled in the water depths of 3,400 meters.
COO Morten Kelstrup of Maersk Drilling, said, “We are thrilled to once again push beyond existing boundaries in collaboration with Total, drawing upon our mutual experience from the exciting deepwater exploration projects we have collaborated on over the years. In addition, it’s great to be heading back to Angola where we performed a series of successful operations from 2012 to 2016, and to do so in a multi-country campaign which will showcase our ability to quickly and smoothly move operations from one jurisdiction to another.”